FBI warning: Crooks are using deepfake videos in interviews for remote gigs The US FBI issued a warning on Tuesday that it was has received increasing numbers of complaints relating to the use of deepfake videos during interviews for tech jobs that involve access to sensitive systems and information. The deepfake videos include a video image or recording convincingly manipulated to misrepresent …
It is not clear exactly what the deep fake is doing here. Is it just about the ethnicity of the applicant, in that the company would not employ someone who looks Korean or whatever? Or is this pretending to be actual people who put their real identifiable photograph on the web (seriously, who does that in this day and age of scammers scraping the web for photos)? If you are giving out security information just because an applicant looks a bit like a picture on the web deep fakes are the least of your problems.
It seems like if this is a security hole then it has been created by the companies for no good reason.
The applicants are providing stolen identity information for background checks.
To lend an air of authenticity to their applications, the dodgy job seekers used stolen personal identification information. The victims whose data was stolen reported their identities being used for pre-employment background checks and more.
"In these interviews, the actions and lip movement of the person seen interviewed on-camera do not completely coordinate with the audio of the person speaking. At times, actions such as coughing, sneezing, or other auditory actions are not aligned with what is presented visually,"
I knew it! Every supposed member of my team in our online 'Teams' meeting is a bot.
Tell the applicant that they have to show up at the HQ in person to sign various NDA/security forms, attend a manual H&S meeting on $Topic, then get their photo taken & fingerprints scanned for use on their corporate security ID badge. The applicant will try to get out of doing anything in person for obvious reasons, at which point their ruse falls flat.
Application photos & video stills show a thirty-something $Nationality1 female, but the person claiming to be the applicant is a sixty-something $Nationality2 male? Hmmmm...
I'm guessing they're not trying something that extreme. It just prevents them from having to find someone that looks very much like them to steal their identity. Certain other characteristics are harder to fake, so I'd guess the age, gender, and some other physical characteristics will get matched reasonably closely before a victim is selected.
But the hard bit's getting the avatar to do something surprising. AIUI these things aren't set up to do anything more than present a human talking - and struggle to even lip sync well.
Once the user can make it snap its fingers (suppose they've got coloured spheres on their hand that the software is tracking) then a sound effect could be produced on the audio; ask your local Foley artist. Maybe it takes some practice. Maybe they screw it up on some interviews. But I don't think producing a click alters the bar very much.
The only reason they are "deepfaking" is because of the video interview. What about phone interviews? Those were a thing before the pandemic, as were 100% remote jobs or contracts. I know, because I worked multiple contracts where the people I worked for and with never saw what I looked like.
If people posing as someone else is an issue, make drug testing mandatory. When you do that they give you the name of a facility near where you live and you have to show up in person and show ID. They wouldn't necessarily even have to care about the results of the drug test, just use the fact the applicant has to show up in person as a deterrent for this new sort of post-pandemic scam.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
