News/Deepfakes
No, that’s not Brad Pitt: AI-powered romance scams cost UK victims £106M in 2024
Digital fraud has evolved far beyond the simple email scams of the early internet era. Today's cybercriminals wield sophisticated artificial intelligence tools to create convincing fake identities, manipulate emotions, and steal millions from unsuspecting victims across social media platforms. While romance scams grab headlines for their devastating emotional and financial impact, they represent just one facet of a much larger and more complex fraud ecosystem. The numbers tell a sobering story. In 2024 alone, romance scams cost victims over £106 million according to the City of London Police, a specialized unit that investigates financial crime in London's business district. Individual...
read Aug 15, 2025WIRED investigation finds 100+ YouTube channels using AI for fake celebrity videos
WIRED's investigation has uncovered over 100 YouTube channels using AI to create fake celebrity talk show videos that are fooling viewers despite their obvious artificial nature. These "cheapfake" videos use basic AI voiceovers and still images to generate millions of views, exploiting psychological triggers and YouTube's algorithm to monetize outrage-driven content. What you should know: These AI-generated videos follow predictable patterns designed to trigger emotional responses rather than fool viewers with sophisticated technology. The videos typically feature beloved male celebrities like Mark Wahlberg, Clint Eastwood, or Denzel Washington defending themselves against hostile left-leaning talk show hosts. Despite using only still...
read Aug 11, 2025AI as force nudifier suggests parents should rethink sharing kids’ photos online
Parents are increasingly avoiding posting photos of their children on social media due to AI-powered "nudifier" apps that can generate fake nude images from any photograph. The shift comes as these deepfake tools have become widely accessible and cheap, with some offering free trials and costing as little as 8 cents per fake image. The big picture: AI nudifier apps have transformed the landscape of online child safety, making it possible for anyone to create convincing fake nude images with minimal technical skill or cost. These apps generate roughly $36 million annually in revenue and are being widely used in...
read Aug 8, 2025House of the Dragon actor releases horror game exposing Hollywood’s AI manipulation
Abubakar Salim, the House of the Dragon actor, has released Dead Take, a horror video game that directly critiques Hollywood's exploitation, corruption, and AI manipulation practices. The psychological thriller uses real-world footage and interactive storytelling to explore industry scandals while positioning itself as Salim's creative rebellion against what he calls the "horrific" entertainment machine. What you should know: Dead Take marks a dramatic shift from Salim's debut game, transforming from heartfelt storytelling to industry exposé. The game follows struggling actor Chase as he breaks into director Duke Cain's mansion searching for his missing friend Vinny. Players navigate room-by-room puzzles that...
read Aug 5, 2025AI-generated TikTok scams steal crypto from over 10K victims
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a sophisticated scam campaign where threat actors use AI-generated videos to impersonate TikTok Shop sellers, tricking users into depositing cryptocurrency and downloading malware. CTM360, a cybersecurity firm, identified over 10,000 phishing URLs and 5,000 malicious app download sites in what they describe as a "widespread, ongoing, malicious campaign" that exploits user trust in TikTok's brand recognition. What you should know: Scammers are creating fake TikTok Shop profiles complete with AI-generated content to appear legitimate while distributing malware called SparkKitty. The campaign uses replicas of TikTok Shop profiles with AI-generated videos to convince users they're interacting with...
read Aug 4, 2025New detector spots deepfakes beyond face-swaps with 99% accuracy
Researchers at UC Riverside have developed a "universal" deepfake detector that achieved record-breaking accuracy rates of 95-99% across multiple types of AI-manipulated videos. Unlike existing tools that focus primarily on face-swap detection, this new system can identify completely synthetic videos, background manipulations, and even realistic video game footage that might be mistaken for real content. What you should know: The detector represents a significant breakthrough in combating the growing threat of synthetic media across various applications. It monitors multiple background elements and facial features simultaneously, spotting subtle spatial and temporal inconsistencies that reveal AI manipulation. The system can detect inconsistent...
read Aug 1, 2025Deepfake scammers target Guernsey chief minister in fake investment scheme
Fraudsters are using AI-generated deepfake content featuring Guernsey's chief minister to trick islanders into fake investment schemes. The scam includes fabricated videos and images of Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez appearing to endorse fraudulent investments, along with fake local newspaper articles designed to lend credibility to the deception. What you should know: Guernsey Police have issued warnings after discovering the sophisticated deepfake scam targeting local residents. The fraudulent content shows fake video and images of Chief Minister Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez seemingly recommending investment opportunities. Scammers also created fake local newspaper articles to make their scheme appear more legitimate and trustworthy....
read Jul 28, 2025Spanish teen investigated for selling AI deepfake nudes of sixteen classmates
Spanish police are investigating a 17-year-old boy for allegedly using artificial intelligence to create and sell deepfake nude images of female classmates in Valencia. Sixteen young women from the same educational institute reported that AI-generated naked images of them were circulating on social media, highlighting a growing trend of non-consensual deepfake abuse targeting minors in Spain. What you should know: The investigation began after a teenage girl reported in December that AI-generated videos and fake photos showing her "completely naked" were posted on a social media account created under her name. Photos of various people, all of them minors, appeared...
read Jul 23, 2025Man creates deepfake Instagram account with ex-girlfriend’s photos, gains 1.4M followers
A woman in India had her identity stolen and used to create a viral deepfake Instagram account called "Babydoll Archi" that gained 1.4 million followers through AI-generated erotic content. The case highlights how artificial intelligence tools are making it easier for bad actors to exploit women's images for revenge, while demonstrating the challenges of preventing and prosecuting such digital crimes. What happened: Pratim Bora, a mechanical engineer and self-taught AI enthusiast, created the fake Instagram profile using private photos of his ex-girlfriend Sanchi, a homemaker from Dibrugarh, Assam. Bora initially used morphed real photos when he created the account in...
read Jul 22, 2025AI voice cloning in public and private life defeats security as Altman warns of fraud crisis
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that the world faces an impending "fraud crisis" driven by AI's ability to enable sophisticated impersonation scams, particularly through voice and video cloning technologies. His comments, delivered during a Federal Reserve interview on Tuesday, highlight growing concerns about AI-powered fraud as authentication systems struggle to keep pace with rapidly advancing synthetic media capabilities. What you should know: Current authentication methods are already being defeated by AI technologies, creating immediate security vulnerabilities.• "AI has fully defeated most of the ways that people authenticate currently, other than passwords," Altman said, specifically criticizing financial institutions that still rely...
read Jul 18, 2025“Nobody could convince me it wasn’t her.” AI voice cloning scam costs Florida mom $15K.
A Florida woman was conned out of $15,000 by scammers who used artificial intelligence to clone her daughter's voice, convincing her that her daughter had killed someone in a car accident. The sophisticated scam highlights the growing threat of AI-powered voice cloning technology in criminal schemes, where scammers can now replicate loved ones' voices with alarming accuracy to exploit family bonds and trigger panic-driven financial decisions. How the scam unfolded: Sharon Brightwell received a call last Wednesday from what appeared to be her daughter April Monroe's phone number, with an AI-cloned voice claiming she had hit a pregnant woman while...
read Jul 17, 2025Scammers use AI deepfakes of Indian chief minister to promote fake investment scheme
Scammers in India have used AI-generated deepfake technology to create a fraudulent video featuring Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu promoting a fake investment scheme. The incident highlights growing concerns about deepfake misuse in financial fraud, prompting government officials to warn of stern action against cyber criminals exploiting this technology. What happened: Cybercriminals created an AI-generated video of Chief Minister Naidu falsely endorsing an investment scam that promised massive returns for an initial investment of Rs 22,000 (approximately $260). The deepfake video was distributed across social media platforms, claiming that "one of India's most successful entrepreneurs has revealed how...
read Jul 10, 2025Women adopt AI 25% less than men partly due to harassment and bias
Women are adopting AI tools at significantly lower rates than men, with new research revealing a 25% gender gap in adoption driven by harassment, bias, and discrimination embedded in AI systems. This disparity threatens to create a technological divide that could impact women's career prospects and exclude them from shaping future AI development. The numbers: Recent data shows stark gender differences in AI adoption and experience. 50% of men use generative AI tools compared to just 37% of women, according to the Survey of Consumer Expectations Harvard Business School research found women adopt AI tools at a 25% lower rate...
read Jul 2, 2025Gen Z turns to AI chatbots amid social media-driven collapse in romantic trust
Generation Z is turning to AI chatbots, romantasy fiction, and anime porn to navigate intimacy in an era where human relationships feel increasingly risky and unpredictable. This digital retreat reflects a broader trust crisis, as young people seek safer alternatives to traditional romantic and sexual connections in a world where privacy breaches and public shaming have become commonplace. The big picture: Gen Z's embrace of digital intimacy stems from a fundamental erosion of trust in human relationships, where social media amplifies every misstep and deepfakes make exploitation easier than ever. In this landscape, technology offers a seemingly safer, more controllable...
read Jul 1, 2025Russian disinformation campaign triples AI-generated content in 8 months
A pro-Russia disinformation campaign known as Operation Overload has dramatically scaled up its output using free consumer AI tools, producing nearly triple the content in the past eight months compared to the previous year. The campaign leverages readily available AI image generators, voice cloning technology, and text-to-image tools to create fake videos, manipulated images, and fabricated content targeting global elections, Ukraine, and immigration issues across multiple platforms. The content explosion: Between September 2024 and May 2025, Operation Overload produced 587 unique pieces of content—more than double the 230 pieces created in the entire previous year from July 2023 to June...
read Jun 24, 2025Persona blocks 75M deepfake attempts as AI hiring fraud targets US companies
San Francisco-based identity verification platform Persona has expanded its workforce screening capabilities to combat AI-powered hiring fraud, introducing new tools specifically designed to detect deepfakes and fake candidates during remote interviews. The enhanced solution addresses a growing crisis where foreign actors, including North Korean state-sponsored groups, use sophisticated AI tools to infiltrate American businesses through fraudulent job applications. The big picture: Remote work has created an unprecedented vulnerability in corporate hiring, with AI-generated fake candidates now capable of passing video interviews and fooling HR professionals into extending job offers. Persona blocked over 75 million AI-based face spoofing attempts across its...
read Jun 19, 2025North Korean hackers used AI deepfakes to steal $659M in crypto
North Korean hackers from the notorious Lazarus group used AI deepfakes to impersonate company executives during a fake Zoom call, successfully tricking an employee at a cryptocurrency foundation into downloading malware. The sophisticated social engineering attack, orchestrated by the BlueNoroff unit, demonstrates how state-sponsored cybercriminals are weaponizing AI technology to target high-value cryptocurrency assets, with North Korea having stolen at least $659 million in digital currency in 2024 alone. The attack methodology: The hackers initiated contact through Telegram, sending a Calendly link that redirected the victim to a fake Zoom domain under their control.• During the group video call, multiple...
read Jun 18, 2025Indian police arrest man for deepfake video targeting chief minister
Odisha police have arrested a construction worker for creating and sharing an AI-generated deepfake video depicting Chief Minister Mohan Majhi in an obscene manner on Facebook. The arrest marks another case in India's growing crackdown on AI-generated content used for defamation and harassment, highlighting the challenges law enforcement faces with synthetic media. What happened: The Cyber Crime Unit of Odisha Crime Branch arrested Kishore Kausalya, a construction company employee from Rayagada district, following a complaint about the morphed video. The fake video was designed to defame the Chief Minister and "tarnish his image in the eyes of the public," according...
read Jun 16, 2025Jury acquits consultant behind AI Biden robocalls in New Hampshire
A New Hampshire jury acquitted political consultant Steven Kramer on all charges related to sending AI-generated robocalls that mimicked President Biden's voice to thousands of Democratic voters before the 2024 primary. The case represents one of the first major legal tests of how courts will handle AI-powered election interference, with implications for how similar cases might be prosecuted as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated and accessible. What happened: Kramer, a 56-year-old New Orleans political consultant, admitted to orchestrating the robocalls sent two days before New Hampshire's January 23, 2024, presidential primary. The AI-generated voice mimicked Biden's speech patterns and used...
read Jun 12, 2025Not allowed to regulate deepfakes? Pennsylvania penalizes fraudulent likeness amid proposed AI law moratorium
Pennsylvania's Senate unanimously passed legislation making it a crime to distribute deepfake AI images while misrepresenting them as authentic, expanding the state's forgery laws to include digitally-generated likenesses. However, the bill faces potential nullification from a federal budget provision that would ban states from enforcing AI regulations for the next decade, threatening Pennsylvania's entire slate of AI-related legislation. What you should know: The new bill would criminalize passing off deepfake images "with intent to defraud or injure anyone," building on last year's law that addressed AI-generated child pornography and non-consensual explicit material. In plain English: Deepfakes are AI-generated images that...
read Jun 12, 2025AI deepfakes now fool 90% of viewers as society nears consensus reality crisis
An artificial intelligence deepfake expert warns that current AI video generation tools like Google's Veo 3 are already indistinguishable from real content for 90% of viewers, potentially creating a future where society loses its shared sense of reality. The warning comes as the satirical film "Mountainhead" depicts tech billionaires whose AI video software triggers global chaos through hyperrealistic deepfakes, raising urgent questions about how close we are to such a scenario. What you should know: AI video generation has reached a critical threshold where distinguishing real from fake content is becoming nearly impossible for most people. "For 90% of viewers,...
read Jun 12, 2025Meta sues company behind AI “nudifying” apps in landmark legal action
Meta has filed a lawsuit against the company behind CrushAI apps for promoting "nudifying" applications on Facebook and Instagram, marking its most aggressive legal action yet against AI-powered non-consensual intimate image creation. The lawsuit follows a months-long battle to remove thousands of ads promoting apps that use artificial intelligence to create fake nude images without consent, highlighting the platform's struggle to combat this growing form of digital abuse. What you should know: Meta's legal action targets a company that persistently evaded advertising restrictions through sophisticated workarounds. In January, researchers found 8,010 instances of CrushAI ads promoting nudifying apps across Facebook...
read Jun 12, 2025Political consultant facing prison time for AI Biden robocalls has no regrets
A political consultant from New Orleans testified that he has no regrets about orchestrating AI-generated robocalls that mimicked President Biden's voice, claiming his actions were intended to highlight the dangers of artificial intelligence rather than suppress votes. Steven Kramer, 56, faces decades in prison on charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate for the calls sent to thousands of New Hampshire voters just days before the state's 2024 Democratic primary. What you should know: The robocalls used AI to replicate Biden's voice and catchphrase "What a bunch of malarkey," telling recipients to save their votes for the November election...
read Jun 5, 2025AI robocall impersonator faces trial for fake Biden calls
The trial of a political consultant who used AI-generated Biden robocalls to manipulate voters highlights the growing intersection of artificial intelligence and electoral integrity. This landmark legal case tests both New Hampshire's voter suppression laws and raises broader questions about AI regulation in politics, as states increasingly grapple with technology that can convincingly impersonate candidates and potentially interfere with democratic processes. The big picture: Political consultant Steven Kramer faces 11 felony charges and 11 misdemeanors for sending AI-generated robocalls impersonating President Biden before the January 2024 New Hampshire primary. The calls falsely told voters they should skip the primary and...
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