Definition
A Deepfake is synthetic media created using deep learning techniques to replace a person's likeness or voice with someone else's, posing significant risks for disinformation, fraud, and social engineering attacks.
People Also Ask
Common questions about Deepfake answered by our security experts.
Deepfake in Practice
Synthetic media crossed a threshold that matters operationally: a convincing clone of a specific person's voice now needs only a short sample from a conference talk, a podcast, a voicemail greeting or a social video.
This does not create a new attack. It removes the friction from an old one. Pretexting over the phone has always worked; sounding exactly like the finance director makes it work far more often.
Where it is used against organisations
| Use | Mechanism |
|---|---|
| Payment fraud | A call apparently from an executive authorising an urgent transfer |
| Help desk compromise | A call apparently from staff requesting an MFA reset |
| Vendor detail changes | A voice call that was supposed to be the verification step |
| Meeting impersonation | Synthetic video or voice joining a call |
| Reputational attack | Fabricated statements attributed to a named individual |
The help desk case is currently the most damaging, because it converts a phone call directly into authenticated access. An MFA reset is the highest-value request an attacker can make.
Why detection is the wrong first answer
Detection tooling exists and improves; so does generation. A control that depends on spotting the fake fails the moment the technology moves, and it places the decision with a person on a call who has no tooling at all.
More fundamentally, the weakness is process. If a payment approval depends on recognising a voice, that control was always weak — voice was never a good authenticator, merely hard enough to imitate that nobody examined it.
Designing verification that survives pressure
The attack works by manufacturing urgency and seniority simultaneously, so the verification step has to be one that a junior member of staff can invoke against a senior person without social cost. That is a management design problem more than a security one.
| Design choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Verification is mandatory, not discretionary | Removes the judgement call from the individual |
| Applies to everyone, including executives | No exception to be pressured into |
| Leadership visibly follows it | Makes compliance safe rather than career-limiting |
| Refusal is explicitly supported | Agents will not use a right they doubt |
| Stated in the procedure, not implied | An unwritten norm collapses under pressure |
Most help desk compromises succeed because an agent felt unable to say no to someone senior and insistent. Publishing that following the procedure will never be held against them does more than any detection tooling.
Finally, reduce the raw material where it is cheap to do so. Executive voice and video are widely published and cannot be withdrawn, so this is not a defence on its own — but unnecessary recordings of finance and approval staff, and voicemail greetings using a named individual’s voice, are avoidable contributions to the attacker’s sample set.
Where to start
Ask your help desk what they would do if a senior executive called, urgently, asking for an MFA reset. The answer is your actual exposure, and if it is “reset it”, that is a fifteen-minute policy change away from being fixed.
See defending approvals against a convincing call and business email compromise defence. GuardsArm runs phishing simulation including voice pretexting.
Related Terms
AI Security
AI Security addresses the unique threats and vulnerabilities associated with artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, including adversarial attacks, model poisoning, data privacy, and the security of AI-driven decision-making.
Social Engineering
Social engineering is a manipulation technique that exploits human psychology to trick people into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information. It is the human element of cybersecurity attacks and often serves as the initial vector for more complex attacks.
Business Email Compromise
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a sophisticated scam targeting organizations that conduct wire transfers, where attackers impersonate executives or trusted partners via email to trick employees into transferring funds or sensitive data.
Related Reading
Deepfake Voice Fraud: Defending Approvals Against a Convincing Call
Voice cloning removed the last reason to trust a familiar voice. The process changes that work, and the awareness training that does not.
Email Security for Healthcare: Stopping Business Email Compromise
Business email compromise carries no malware and defeats most filtering. How healthcare organisations enforce DMARC without breaking clinical mail…
AI Governance and ISO 42001: Where to Start Before You Certify
An AI management system is ISO 27001 in shape and different in substance. What it actually requires, and the inventory that has to come first.
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