BlackCloak, a provider of cybersecurity and digital privacy protections for individuals and companies, announced on Monday its new identity verification solution, aimed at protecting users from all types of impersonation and scam campaigns, including deepfake-powered attacks that target high-profile executives and individuals.
Leveraging artificial intelligence and publicly available audio, video, and images, cyber-attackers create convincing fake videos and audio recordings of executives asking employees or family members to transfer funds or take other actions that compromise company assets or confidential data. BlackCloak’s new identity verification offering addresses this rapidly emerging cybersecurity issue by enabling customers who receive a suspicious email to verify the sender’s identity and ensure the message is authentic.
The new feature is part of the company’s Digital Executive Protection Framework, which offers chief information security officers and chief security officers a detailed risk assessment and control review of the necessary components of a comprehensive digital executive protection program.
A recent report from the Ponemon Institute, Deepfake Deception: How AI Harms the Fortunes and Reputation of Executives and Corporations, which surveyed 586 IT and security practitioners in the U.S., revealed that 42% of respondents said their executives and board members had been targeted at least once by a fake image or video. Additionally, 66% of respondents said it’s highly likely that a future deepfake will target their executives, while 53% said technologies that enable executives to verify the identity and authentication of messages they receive are highly important.
In addition, the Deloitte Center for Financial Services predicts that generative AI could enable fraud losses to reach $40 billion in the U.S. by 2027, representing a significantly pressing threat to individuals and corporations.
“The deepfake threat is real—and it’s costing businesses huge sums of money,” Chris Pierson, PhD, founder and CEO of BlackCloak, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the cybersecurity industry to date has been unable to provide the necessary tools to detect and stop deepfakes targeting executives, as systems typically must be placed between the attacker and the target to analyze content. Because it’s impossible to monitor every communication channel within an organization, attackers target less protected avenues, like an executive’s personal phone or email.”
BlackCloak’s new identity verification feature targets phishing campaigns, such as deepfakes, by allowing the user to prompt the sender to validate that they are who they claim to be through the BlackCloak mobile app. The new feature can combat the impact of deepfakes containing the following attributes:
- Synthetic media: Created using AI, particularly “deep learning” techniques, to generate realistic but fake audio, video, or images.
- Facial manipulation: The ability to swap or mimic a target individual’s facial features, expressions, and movements with high accuracy.
- Voice cloning: Replicates the tone, pitch, and style of a person’s voice, often combined with text-to-speech technology.
- Behavioral mimicry: Imitates the target individual’s body language, gestures, and speaking style.
“Our solution allows the recipient of a suspicious communication of any type to send an identity verification request directly to the sender using BlackCloak as their trusted intermediary,” said Matt Covington, vice president of product for BlackCloak. “This approach is the most effective way to find and stop such malicious content from causing significant financial damage. We’re excited to launch this critical solution as part of our expanding digital executive protection offering.”
To find out more about BlackCloak’s identity verification feature, visit https://blackcloak.io/identity-verification/.
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