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Small man wearing clothes associated with crime climbs into a trapdoor in another man's head

What does the rise of deepfakes mean for the future of cybersecurity?

  • min read
    • Imagine you're holding a video conference with a colleague or business partner in another city. You're discussing sensitive matters, like the launch of a new product or the latest unpublished financial reports. Everything seems to be going well, and you know who you're talking to. Maybe you've even met them before. Their appearance and voice are as you expected, and they seem to be pretty familiar with their jobs and your business. It might sound like a routine business call, but what if the person you thought you were talking to is actually someone else? They might seem genuine, but behind the familiar imagery and audio is a social engineering scammer fully intent on duping you into surrendering sensitive corporate information. In a nutshell, this is the disturbing world of deepfakes, where artificial intelligence is the new weapon of choice in the scammer's arsenal. What exactly are deepfakes? Among the newest words on the technology block, 'deepfake' is a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake.' The term has been around for two years, when it first appeared on a Reddit community of the same name. The technology uses artificial intelligence to superimpose and combine both real and AI-generated images, videos and audio to make them look almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The apparent authenticity of the results is rapidly reaching disturbing levels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0 One of the most famous deepfakes of all was created by actor and comedian Jordan Peele, who made this video of Obama delivering a PSA about fake news. While this one was made for the sake of humor and to raise awareness to this rapidly emerging trend, deepfake technology has, unsurprisingly, been misappropriated since the very beginning. Its implications for credibility and authenticity have placed it squarely in the spotlight. The worrying consequences of deepfakes Wherever there's technology innovation, there's nearly always pornography, so it's little surprise that the first deepfakes to make waves on Reddit were videos which had been manipulated to replace the original actresses' faces with somebody else's – typically a well-known celebrity. Reddit, along with many other networks, has since banned the practice. However, as actress Scarlett Johansson said of deepfake pornography, while celebrities are largely protected by their fame, the trend poses a grave threat to people of lesser prominence. In other words, those who don't take steps to protect their identities could potentially end up facing a reputational meltdown. That brings me to the political consequences of deepfakes. So far, attempts to masquerade as well-known politicians have been carried out largely in the name of research or comedy. But the time is coming when deepfakes could become realistic enough to cause widespread social unrest. No longer will we be able to rely on our eyes and ears for a firsthand account of events. Imagine, for example, seeing a realistic video of a world leader discussing plans to carry out assassinations in rival states. In a world primed for violence, the implications of deepfake technology could have devastating consequences. Purveyors of fake news seeking to make a political impact are just one side of the story. The other is the form of social engineering that business leaders are all too familiar with. As the video conference example illustrates, deepfakes are a new weapon for cybercriminals. The world's first deepfake-based attack against a corporation was reported in August 2019, when a UK energy firm was duped by a person masquerading as the boss of its German parent company. The scammer allegedly used AI to impersonate the accent and voice patterns of the latter's CEO, someone the victim was familiar with, over a phone call. The victim suspected nothing and was duped out of $243,000. These uses of deepfake technology might seem far-fetched, but it's important to remember that social engineering scammers have been impersonating people since long before the rise of digital technologies. Criminals no longer have to go to such lengths as studying targets in great depth and even hiring makeup artists to disguise themselves; they now have emerging technologies on their side, as businesses do for legitimate purposes. Previously, successfully impersonating a VIP was much more difficult. Now, the ability to create deepfake puppets of real people using publicly available photos, video and audio recordings is within everyone's grasp. Can you protect your business from deepfakes? The common misassumption, that synthetic impersonation can never be nearly as convincing as the real thing, is the biggest danger of all. We live in a world where it's getting harder to tell fact from fiction. From the hundreds of millions of fake social media profiles to the worrying spread of fake news and the constant rise of phishing attacks – it's never been more important to think twice about what you see. Perhaps, after all, there is a case for a return of face-to-face meetings behind closed doors when discussing important business matters. Fortunately, there are other ways you can prepare your business for the inevitable rise of deepfakes without placing huge barriers in the way of innovation. To start with, 'seeing is believing' is a concept you'll increasingly want to avoid when it comes to viewing video or listening to audio, including live broadcasts. To untrained eyes, deepfakes are getting harder to tell apart from the real thing, but there are, and likely always will be, some signs due to the fundamental way AI algorithms work. When a deepfake algorithm generates new faces, they are geometrically transformed with rotation, resizing and other distortions. It's a process that inevitably leaves behind some graphical artifacts. While these artifacts will become harder to identify by sight alone, AI itself can also be used as a force for good – it can detect whether a video or stream is authentic or not. The science of defending against deepfakes is a battle of wills: as deepfakes increase in believability, cybersecurity professionals need to invest more in seeking the truth. A team of researchers in China recently published a method for using AI itself to expose deep fakes in real time. Another paper published by the same team figured out a way to proactively protect digital photos and videos from being misappropriated by deepfake algorithms by adding digital noise, invisible to the human eye. As the threat of deepfakes edges ever nearer, we can hopefully expect more countermeasures to follow suit. This article represents the personal opinion of the author.
blockchain disinformation

How one high-tech solution is helping fight fake news

  • min read
    • As ways to create and disseminate disinformation get more sophisticated and widely available, it's getting harder to tell fact and fiction. But the next version of the internet, Web3, might offer a 'force field' that could protect citizens from this troubling phenomenon. Start-ups and established media companies are using blockchain as part of solutions that aim to verify information and filter out false news. Is this what the world needs now, or could it open the door to even more disinformation? Fakes harder to tell from reality "There's huge money and huge power in fake news. We've seen it here in the US and around the world," says Jim Nasr, CEO of blockchain developer Acoer. Acoer created blockchain-based news platform NewsHash. Disinformation can have far-reaching and sometimes dangerous impacts. We saw this over the pandemic years especially, with rampant covid-related medical disinformation. Tommaso Canetta, vice director of Italian fact-checking agency Pagella Politica, says how false news spreads is "ever-changing. It can [come from] and go in every direction – from traditional to online media to politicians, or the other way around." A 2020 Reuters report found over 56 percent of internet users are worried if they can tell fake from real online. And 'deepfakes' – highly realistic looking audio, video and photos created using AI – further muddy the waters. A technological solution for filtering out fakes? Blockchain could create a 'built-in truth index' for the internet, effectively labeling and verifying each piece of information, creating a sort of watermark for authenticity. Used the right way, this could help people be sure news and media they receive are real. But it's complicated. Using blockchain in journalism might solve some problems but create others. For example, it may trigger more sophisticated disinformation, poor transparency or a single company like Meta (formerly Facebook) dominating the industry. What is blockchain? Blockchain stores information as blocks added in chronological order to a virtual 'chain,' stored securely and permanently. Once added to the chain, blocks are hard to change. Well-known blockchain platforms like Bitcoin and Ethereum use it to store financial transaction information, but the technology can also store and distribute news. Blockchain-based news platforms provide a secure and decentralized way to store verified information, which cannot be changed – like putting a digital watermark on verified news stories. Initiatives like the now-defunct Civil for journalism, Steemit for social media and Truepic for photo and video let publishers permanently link verified information to content in a blockchain. New York Times is also developing a blockchain-news platform, News Provenance Project. Fighting a powerful form of disinformation, miscaptioning – real photos or videos described in misleading ways – the project uses blockchain to permanently attach context (like who shot the film or image, when and where) to media. Acoer's NewsHash works by giving an article an encrypted hash (a unique string of characters) containing metadata added by the publisher, like the author's name and a publication identification number. "If the article changes in any way – even the most minuscule change – we can tell," says CEO Nasr. "And all in real-time." Readers can scan a QR code, which consults the blockchain to check whether an article or video is real. Nasr's company also assigns 'confidence scores,' rating information's authenticity. But while blockchain-based platforms can help protect against doctored images or false news pretending to be from a reputed source, they may also create new problems. But what's further up the chain? Technologies chasing a disinformation-free internet can backfire by encouraging more sophisticated disinformation or offering different versions of 'the truth.' Nasr says there are blind spots when publishing a completed news article on the blockchain because there are many places data can come from. The immutable nature of blockchain also means it may become harder to correct inadvertent errors in published material, making journalism as a whole seem like a less trustworthy source. Another issue is the potential for centralization – a single platform or business may start to dominate the news. "It's easy for an AI algorithm or company to become a centralized location for everything. It's like the internet – the idea is great, but we now have four companies [Meta, Amazon, Apple and Google] dominating it," says Nasr. "That's why we use a public ledger, instead of specific tools or proprietary algorithms, to [let readers] interrogate how we're getting there." The first and second lines of defense aren't technology With advances in AI, video and image editing software, tools for spreading disinformation will improve. Deepfake videos have already fooled internet users many times. "With the progress of fact-checking and technological tools to fight disinformation, we'll also see more complex disinformation," says Canetta. There's also a paradox in journalism requiring trust, while blockchain seeks to eliminate the need for trust. "Journalism is built around gatekeeping. You need someone to approve a story before it goes online – a hierarchy or system in place to ensure quality," says Walid Al-Saqaf, former journalist and senior lecturer in media technology and journalism at Södertörn University, Sweden. "But the notion of Bitcoin and the original blockchain was that you don't need trust." Canetta believes awareness and media literacy are the first and second lines of defense in fighting disinformation. He feels blockchain journalism isn't a silver bullet because "misinformation is not just an online phenomenon. We must teach school children that while they have access to unlimited information, not all of it is true or accurate." Using blockchain to secure other information Decentralized platforms like blockchain have many applications, like more secure communication between organizations, facilitating payroll and making auditing easier. Start-ups are working on blockchain systems that authenticate supply chains, enable digital voting, create and implement smart contracts and more. Within companies, blockchain can help secure data and make sure digital communications aren't altered. But it's not failsafe. For example, an unauthorized user can access a blockchain with a stolen password. And although it would require significant resources, it's possible to take over a whole blockchain and force a change. As blockchain evolves, so will ways to hack into it. Keeping systems updated and secure, and following security best practice will remain crucial to safer business.
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