S'pore firms must step up to counter deepfake threats, say experts

Businesses here are mostly underprepared amid tech’s rapid advancement, they warn

- Krist Boo

In January, a high school in the American city of Baltimore was thrown into chaos when an anonymous e-mail containing an audio recording surfaced, allegedly featuring the school principal spewing racist comments.

The clip went viral, garnering over 27,000 shares on social media and leading to the principal's suspension amid public outrage and threats to his safety.

Police investigations revealed that the recording was a deepfake, made by the school's athletics director in retaliation over an investigation on the use of school funds.

Weeks later, however, an audio-deepfake detection company Pindrop published its own analysis. The clip had been doctored, perhaps edited a bit, but the core of the recording was real. The company was 97 per cent sure.

This story, which made global news, shows deepfakes are getting so good that even experts clash on what is real.

These images, videos or audio, edited or made using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, could depict real or non-existent people.

After generative AI went mainstream in 2022, deepfakes became better, more accessible and scalable.

Threat actors now offer deepfake campaign services on the dark web for as little as over a hundred dollars.

While an estimated 98 per cent of deepfake content is pornographic in nature and the remaining concentrated on politics, the risks of this technology turning into corporate apocalypses are real.

And Singapore organisations, say experts, are not ready to deal with them.

Deepfake risks are often seen as less imminent and immediate compared with ransomware or malware, which are better understood and often addressed by regulations and cyber-security frameworks, said Mr Righard Zwienenberg, a senior research fellow at cyber-security firm Eset.