Maybe you've had the fun of putting on cat ears or looking like a potato with eyes and a mouth during meetings on Zoom, Skype and other platforms. These are funny and harmless gimmicks - in contrast to real real-time deepfakes, which, according to the FBI, are increasingly being used in online job interviews to get a job in a data-sensitive position.

The FBI public announcement

In the public announcement (see HERE ), the FBI says they have been receiving more and more reports from employers. Applicants are said to have used fake videos, images and audio recordings during interviews. What's interesting is that the deepfake applications are always for positions in the technical area with access to sensitive data.

The positions were always advertised as remote or home working positions, and the areas of activity were in the areas of information technology and computer programming, databases and software. Some of the reported positions include access to customer personal information, financial information, company IT databases and/or proprietary information.

How the deepfakes were noticed

To a certain extent, real-time deepfakes are possible; just think of gimmicks like the programs “ Facerig ” or “ Animaze ”, with which you can replace your own face with an avatar in real time by automatically recognizing the eyes, nose and mouth area can.

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A type of deepfake: real-time animations of avatars, source: Animaze on Steam

Real-time deepfakes are a little more complicated, as it is not an anime girl or a talking bear that needs to be animated, but rather a real-looking person - and the markings of the facial areas alone are no longer enough.

A shortcoming of the above method, just like with real-time deepfakes: The image and sound are often slightly offset or the animation “hangs” if the camera does not capture the facial areas correctly for a second. This was also noticed by the people who reported to the FBI:

In these interviews, the actions and lip movements of the person being interviewed on camera did not completely match the tone of the person speaking. Sometimes actions such as coughing, sneezing, or other auditory actions did not match what was represented visually.

Stolen data as the basis of deepfakes

Unfortunately, there are many traps on the Internet for users to steal their identity. Facebook phishing, i.e. obtaining the access data of Facebook users, is very common and popular with fraudsters. We report HERE, .

Facebook profiles are perfect for fraudsters to commit complete identity theft and prepare a job interview deepfake: often there are enough pictures and private information to then use this data to apply to a company. If they carry out a short background check, you will see a real profile - with the difference that it is now controlled by fraudsters.

Conclusion

Whether they are real-time deepfakes or video and sound snippets like the recent Klitschko fake ( we reported ): Such fakes are still relatively easy to spot with a little attention, but the technology will inevitably improve. Employers with vacancies in data-sensitive positions should therefore check their potential applicants particularly carefully.

Article image: Pexels/Pixabay


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )