Employers finding themselves fending off deepfakes, and it’s not easy

Not so long ago, the adage “seeing is believing” could be trusted, but those days are gone. Armed with always-advancing technology, bad actors are now able to create extraordinarily convincing images, videos, audios, and text showing people saying and doing what they haven’t actually said or done. These “deepfakes”—which enable fraud, damage to reputation, and more—are keeping employers up at night.

Facing potential harm

Examples of the havoc deepfakes wreak are numerous. One incident reported in February illustrates why the problem is so alarming. A finance worker in Hong Kong employed at a multinational company unwittingly sent fraudsters more than $25 million, thinking he was carrying out instructions conveyed through a video conference with his superiors.

The mistake was understandable because the worker recognized the faces, voices, and even the office backgrounds of those superiors, according to news reports quoting Hong Kong police. But those images and voices weren’t real.

Using artificial intelligence technology that’s increasingly easy to acquire and use, the fraudsters are believed to have used publicly available footage to create the fake conference.

It’s not just financial fraud worrying employers. With remote work on the rise, employers are more often using video conferencing technology for interviews as well as everyday communications with employees. All that leads to potentially more trouble in hiring, internal investigations, and other kinds of communications.