Generative AI has made innovative advancements in voice technology, and it has come with its advantages and some scares, like voice clones and audio deepfakes. It can create hyper-realistic deepfakes of audio and cloning of voices.
If there’s a piece of someone’s voice recording, its voice clone can be created with its many tools. The clone it produces is virtually indistinguishable from the original voice note. TTS (Text-to-speech) technology can speak whatever text has been fed to it in a cloned voice.
As the headlines of businesses being attacked by deepfakes dominate, detection experts are collecting invaluable insights into how these attacks are formed and the weaknesses they exploit. In the previous two years, persistent phishing campaigns drove hijackings and theft of the accounts’ data, identity, and reputation of the businesses.
In this blog, we check out the reality of cyber threats today.
Voice Clones and Audio Deepfakes-
A voice clone is a a replica of a person’s voice made by using AI that mimics the original voice, pitch, and tone.
The threat of a voice clone is such that it has a complex effect on public opinions and their trust. Now and then, on social platforms like X and Instagram, we see a political leader or someone with a huge fan following saying things they haven’t said. After fact-checking, they turned out to be clones of their voices. There can be sinister motives behind doing so. It is very easy to get the voice samples of a political leader or a celebrity as they are often heard talking publicly. These situations can affect the public, putting the victim in a bad light.
A deepfake is a fabricated media. It could be a picture, video, text or audio. They are created to look authentic, but they are influenced by generative AIs. Deepfake audio creation ordinarily involves instructing deep neural networks on big data of videos and pictures, headlining the target(s). The learning model is programmed to learn facial expressions, mannerisms, and features, which enables it to generate a new video or picture that looks genuine.
The impact of Voice Clones and Audio Deepfakes right through businesses-
One of the headaches for modern big businesses today is audio deepfakes, particularly financial consortiums. Their call centers are increasingly overwhelmed with voice clones and audio deepfakes in attempts to gain access to their customers' accounts. AI-driven fraud has become a primary security concern for banks as scammers submit AI-modified documents to open bogus accounts.
The harm caused by deepfake cyber-crime goes beyond voice clones and audio deepfakes and can impact any business or industry. Insurance companies are also enduring substantial losses as scammers submit deepfake evidence for illicit claims.
There are consequences of non-consented voice clones on a public level:
Deception: Bad actors can be a person, a group, or an establishment that engages in damaging, illegal activities to cause division or unrest for their agenda. These bad actors can clone voices or create audio deepfakes to misinform the public and cause unrest while deceiving the public to drive negatively toward the victim.
Defamation: Creating fake audios of someone can be attributed to falsely accusing them of saying things that they haven’t said. This leads to defamation of the person or organization, which affects them negatively in public court of opinion.
Coercion or Shakedown: There have been cases where people received calls claiming that they had nabbed their kid, demanding ransom. They use a kid’s cloned voice to convince the victims that it's true. These kinds of cases have taken place, and people have lost money.
How to detect Voice Clones and Audio Deepfakes and their Solutions?
How can an organization combat this threat of voice clones and audio deepfakes?
- Detection is the primary step to counterattacking those threats.
- The ability to accurately detect AI-generated audio, images, and videos as quickly as possible can help organizations outwit the bad actors seeking to use deepfakes to achieve their fraud and wicked campaigns.
- Proper voice clones and audio deepfakes tools are designed to flag the deepfakes as they come.
- Text and image detectors are a strong hindrance to fake documents, identity larceny, and phishing.
- For images – look for unnatural expressions, weird eye movements, irregularities in the texture of the skin, improper lighting and coloring, etc.
- For videos – look for body language discrepancies, audio-video, or mismatched lip movements.
Want to check out more cybersecurity tips? Check out SecureITWorld now!
Also Read:
How to Secure Your Business from Cyber Threats?
Endpoint Security 101 – How to Protect Your Business from Cyber Threats?
