There’s a lot of fear and hype around the Deepfake landscape, we provide our take on the landscape and what to watch over the next few months.

Deepfake can be regulated: False

Watermarking and regulation will not stop the spread of Deepfake abuse. We’ve already passed the point of regulation. The best option is governance, similar to DMCA claims.

As a business, the best option is to asses risk and exposure and align with business objectives to mitigate Deepfake risks as much as possible.

Deepfake Is a Rising Threat: True.

Deepfake has matured Rapidly over the past year. What was once only possible on a local machine with high GPU can be done in the cloud in a few minutes now. The bar and barrier for creating Deepfake has been lowered exponentially. This means the barrier for abuse is lowered too… In turn, we believe we will see more and more malicious use of Deepfake this year and next.

Deepfake Attacks Are Not Something to Worry About: False.

Deepfake shouldn’t induce a panic attack, but it should be high on the radar of emerging threats. Right now, publicly known Deepfake attacks have been predominant in Southeast Asia. However, we are seeing evidence of reported attacks starting to spread to Europe. We believe North America has not peaked yet. According to a study by Onfido, attempts of fraud using deepfakes increased by 3,000% over the past year, and this trend is expected to continue.

Deepfake is easy to Spot: False.

For video there are still subtle irregularities you can spot today, but it has improved to the point that is almost nearly indistinguishable. The biggest threat today is Deepfake audio. This is much harder to detect with a human ear and harder to distinguish. You can take our quiz to see if you can spot Deepfake – the average success rate is 52%

Deepfake will be used for sextortion and exploitation: True.

We’ve seen an explosion in graphic content and abuse for Deepfake, including actresses, political figures being targeted and abused using Deepfake. We expect this worrying trend to continue.

Deepfake will be used for political mis-information: True.

We’ve already seen evidence of this occurring and believe actors from abroad will use Deepfake in an attempt to sway elections through mis-information. This is a very heightened risk leading up to the elections. 2024 has major implications globally for voting. We anticipate a surge in Deepfake mis-information and is an extreme risk globally. India has been a hotspot for political deepfakes.

Who is at heightened Risk for Deepfake:

1. Financial Transaction Organizations: Credit Unions, Banking, Crypto Traders, Real-Estate, Law Firms. Any company that transfers funds or manages funds.

2. Prominent Public Figures: Actors / Actresses, Politicians, C-Suite.