"FBI Alert Warns of Russian, Chinese Use of Deepfake Content"

The FBI sent out an alert on Wednesday that malicious actors “almost certainly” will be using deepfakes to advance their influence or cyber-operations in the coming weeks.  The FBI anticipates that foreign and criminal cyber actors will increasingly use deepfakes for spearphishing and social engineering attacks.  The main fear is that if manipulated media is allowed to proliferate unabated, conspiracy theories and maligned influence will become mainstream.  A pro-Chinese government influence operation used profile images generated with artificial intelligence (AI) to lend authenticity to their campaign in one recent disinformation case.  In another recent case, researchers found that the Russian Internet Research Agency used Generative Adversarial Networks-generated images for fake profile accounts used to push divisions ahead of the U.S. elections in 2020.  To catch synthetic media or deepfakes, the FBI suggests users be alert for warping, distortions, syncing issues, or other inconsistencies in images or videos.

Cyberscoop reports: "FBI Alert Warns of Russian, Chinese Use of Deepfake Content"