CEO admits to fraud – but it's a deepfake

ARTIFICIAL intelligence has now made it possible to wake up to a video of your CEO seemingly admitting to fraud or receiving an urgent audio message from your CFO authorising a large, unexpected transaction, without any of it being real.

- WILLIAM PETHERBRIDGE

Deepfakes aren't limited to criminal use cases targeting individuals or governments - they represent a sophisticated and escalating threat to corporations globally, including South Africa.

The use of deepfake technology has become one of the most powerful tools fueling disinformation. The rise in AI and machine learning embedded in commercially available tools such as generative adversarial networks (GANs) has levelled the playing field and increased the sophistication of deepfake content.

Cybercriminals, disgruntled insiders, competitors, and even state-sponsored groups can leverage deepfakes for devastating attacks, ranging from financial fraud and network compromise to severe reputational damage.

The threat itself, however, is not fake; it's manifesting tangibly within South Africa. The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) has issued stark warnings about the rise in AI-driven fraud scams, explicitly including deepfakes and voice cloning used to impersonate bank officials or lure victims into fake investment schemes, sometimes even using fabricated endorsements from prominent local figures.

With South Africa already identified by Interpol as a global cybercrime hotspot, estimating annual losses in the billions of rands, the potential financial impact of sophisticated deepfake fraud targeting businesses is immense.

There are also implications for democracy as a whole. Accenture Africa recently highlighted how easily deepfakes could amplify misinformation and political unrest in a nation where false narratives can already spread rapidly online a critical concern when it comes to elections.