CIO OPINION
Andrew Bud , Founder & CEO , iProov
The deepfake problem your business doesn ’ t know it has
Andrew Bud , Founder & CEO , iProov , examines the current threat landscape , what businesses can learn from recent threat examples and why organisations should ready themselves before deepfakes become a real-time threat .
In early 2024 , a shocking revelation sent ripples through the cybersecurity world : Arup , a global engineering powerhouse , fell victim to a staggering £ 20 million deepfake scam . An employee transferred unauthorised funds after being deceived by AI-generated deepfakes impersonating senior company officials in a video call . This incident , publicly acknowledged by Arup ’ s Global Chief Information Officer , Rob Greig , underscored the escalating threat of increasingly sophisticated identity-centric cyberattacks and in particular deepfakes .
The ticking clock : The inescapable reality of deepfake threats
A few months on , a crucial question lingers : Why aren ’ t more enterprises urgently addressing the deepfake threat ? Arup ’ s transparency acts as a blunt reminder that no organisation is immune , not even the most security conscious . The challenge , however , lies in the prevailing disbelief that deepfakes pose a tangible risk . This was backed up in a recent study of global technology decision-makers by iProov which found that almost half of organisations had encountered a deepfake yet two-thirds ( 62 %) worry their organisation isn ’ t taking the threat of deepfakes seriously enough . The stark reality is that deepfakes pose a threat to any situation where an individual needs to verify their identity remotely . They can be used in many harmful ways and have quickly become a powerful way of launching cyberattacks . One of the most quantifiable is financial fraud . Here they can be used to commit large-scale identity fraud by creating synthetic identities or impersonating individuals to
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