Sophos: Hackers Avoid Deep Fakes as Phishing Attacks are Effective

According to a prominent security counsel for the UK-based infosec business Sophos, the fear of deepfake scams is entirely exaggerated.

According to John Shier, senior security adviser for cybersecurity company Sophos, hackers may never need to utilize deepfakes on a large scale because there are other, more effective ways to deceive individuals into giving up personal information and financial data.

As per Shier, phishing and other types of social engineering are much more effective than deepfakes, which are artificial intelligence-generated videos that imitate human speech.

What are deepfakes?

Scammers frequently use technology to carry out ‘Identity Theft’. In order to demonstrate the risks of deepfakes, researchers in 2018 employed the technology to assume the identity of former US President Barack Obama and disseminate a hoax online.

Shier believes that while deepfakes may be overkill for some kinds of fraud, romance scams—in which a scammer develops a close relationship with their victim online in order to persuade them to send them money—could make good use of the technology because videos will give an online identity inherent legitimacy.

Since deepfake technology has gotten simpler to access and apply, Eric Horvitz, chief science officer at Microsoft, outlines his opinion that in the near future, “we won’t be able to tell if the pe

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