What are deepfakes?
Deepfakes are a type of digital content that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques to change or create lifelike images, videos, or audio. Although the content is fake, it looks very real and can imitate the look and feel of real people.
How does it affect individuals?
Deepfakes can lead to privacy violations, reputational damage, and financial or security risks. Here's how they can affect individuals:
- Identity theft and fraud: Impersonations can be used to perform fraudulent activities like accessing bank accounts or tricking people into revealing sensitive information.
- Unauthorized use of images and videos: Deepfake technology can manipulate personal photos or videos without consent, violating privacy.
- Fake news and misinformation: Realistic but fake videos or audio recordings can damage reputations and spread misinformation, particularly targeting public figures such as politicians and celebrities. This manipulation can influence public opinion and create confusion around events or statements.
- Online harassment and bullying: Fake photos and videos can be used to spread false and damaging content, leading to harassment and bullying.
What is the technology behind deepfakes?
The word deepfake combines "deep learning" and "fake”, highlighting its ability to create realistic-looking, synthetic content. It relies on advanced AI and machine learning techniques, including:
- Deep learning: Uses networks of nodes, inspired by the human brain, to understand and create images and sounds.
- Generative adversarial networks (GANs): A method of learning where one part creates fake data and another part checks how real it looks.
- Facial recognition and alignment: Uses facial landmark detection and face swapping to map and transform facial features.
Examples of deepfake incidents
- Romance scams: This is an ongoing type of scam involving individuals using deepfake technology to impersonate attractive people on dating sites, creating realistic video chats to deceive victims into believing they were in a real relationship. They exploited this trust to request money, causing significant financial losses.
- Investment scams: Using deepfake technology to create videos of well-known business figures endorsing specific investments. These scams continue to be a problem today, with convincing but fake endorsements misled investors into making decisions based on false information.
- Emergency scams: Deepfake technology is also used to create fake but convincing calls where someone appears to be a loved one in trouble, like being in jail, kidnapped, or in an accident. These scams play on the fear and urgency of the situation to trick people into sending money or sharing personal details.
- Privacy and Misinformation: Many celebrities are often targeted with deepfake pornography, violating their privacy. This misuse also extends to everyday individuals, whose images are stolen from social media or public photos to create explicit material. Such abuse has serious privacy implications and consequences for those affected.
- Social media misinformation: Deepfake videos of public figures spread on social media, showing false statements and behaviors to mislead viewers.
How can Trend Micro protect me from deepfake video calls?
The Trend Micro Deepfake Inspector protects you from scammers using AI face-swapping technology during video calls. With this tool, you can be confident that you're speaking to the real person every time you join a live video call.
Step-by-step guide: How to use the Trend Micro Deepfake Inspector
- Click the link below to download and install Trend Micro Deepfake Inspector.
- Follow the setup guide until completion.
- Click on Start detection to initiate the detection on your screen when you participate in a video call.
A notification will appear if Trend Micro Deepfake Inspector has detected anomalies in the video. If no irregularities were detected, the detection will stop automatically after 3 minutes.
