Make sure you won't be the next victim

Deepfake frauds, synthetic identities and scams based on artificial intelligence (Ia) make identity theft more difficult to detect and prevent, warns ESET cyber security expert, Phil Muncaster, in an article published on the Romanian blog of antivirus solutions.

« Artificial intelligence (AI) transforms the world into both expected and unforeseen ways. For consumers, technology means personalized digital content with more accuracy, better medical diagnoses, (linguistic) translation and generative assistants who increase productivity at work. But AI is used to help cyber criminals to be more productive, especially in the case of identity frauds – the most common type of fraud (…) Scammers use Deepfake technology to create forged images and videos of real users, so that they pass the Know Your Customer checks imposed by the financial institutions. A picture or video with you can be taken from the Internet and introduced into a deepfake or generative tool. Subsequently, this falsified content is inserted into the data flow between the user and the service provider through the so-called Attacks injection, meant to trick the authentication systems.« Wrote Muncaster.

According to the quoted source, over one third of leaders in the field of risk and bank innovation in the UK, Spain and the US believe that the biggest challenge of the moment is to increase the frauds generated by AI and Deepfakes.

Also, a specialized estimate shows that the fraud based on AI represents, at present, over two fifths (43%) of the total fraud attempts recorded by the financial sector and payments. In addition, almost one third (29%) of these attempts are materialized.

Another report quoted in the ESET article shows that Deepfakes represent a quarter (24%) of the total fraudulent attempts to avoid motion-based biometric checks, respectively 5% of those based on selfies (static).

At the same time, digital forgeries represent over 57% of all fraud with documents, registering an annual increase of 244%.

« Cyber ​​criminals usually access documents available online or use images of stolen documents following security breaches. Subsequently, it changes the data in Photoshop or with the help of other tools. Generative -based technologies (GENAI) allow them to do this quickly and largely, ”says Muncaster.

Other types of identity theft refers to: fraud with synthetic (manufactured) identities – used to open bank accounts or to obtain credit cards; deepfakes that mislead friends and family; Credential Stuffing (for taking accounts) – involves the use of authentication data, stolen, in automated attempts to access other accounts where you used the same user and password combinations.

« In order to counteract the use against them, organizations are increasingly oriented towards AI defense tools to identify the characteristic signs of fraud. But what can you do? Perhaps the most effective strategy is to minimize the opportunities that malicious actors can have to obtain your personal identification information and audio/video data. Frauds based on AI will continue to grow as technology becomes cheaper and more efficient. As this new cyber arming race takes place between the defenders of the business networks and their opponents, consumers will be caught in the middle. Make sure you will not be one of the following victims, ”the expert draws attention