Deepfake Employees Are On The Rise

Has your company ever hired deepfake employees? Are you not exactly sure what they are? Read on…

Technology :
Many moons ago, potential employees attended job interviews in person. The company rep saw their face, shook their hand, and evaluated them based on their in-person interview. However, when COVID hit, companies switched to online video job interviews for positions that allowed employees to work remotely.  

And, that is how deepfake employees were born. 

A deepfake employee is someone who gets a real job without doing a real interview. Instead, they either ask a friend to appear on camera as them (particularly if the friend has vast knowledge about the company’s area of expertise), or the deepfake uses technology to merge a photo and voice sample of some random individual into the “person” appearing in the on-camera interview.

The fact that many companies have hired hundreds of employees who’ve never been in the same room with their boss or co-workers confirms that deepfake employees do exist.

So, why is this a concern, you ask?

Those who get their friend to appear on camera and complete a job interview as if it were them are committing fraud. Oftentimes, the job a deepfake applies for requires specific skills and training — which the fake employee may not have. Although they may succeed by convincing a friend to pretend and get the job for them, they are frequently exposed once they’re expected to actually do the job they have no knowledge of being able to do.

However, there are other more nefarious reasons why deepfake employees exist.

Sometimes, deepfake employees have stolen the identity of others. Using today’s technology, they only need 1 photo and 1 small voice sample to make a fake “image” of someone appear during an interview — complete with talking, moving their mouth, and more.  

Deepfake employees will go to these lengths to get inside the inner workings of a company and steal company secrets or technology. Others are bad actors from foreign countries such as North Korea looking to capitalize on money, espionage, etc.

Fortunately, some companies have been able to halt deepfake employees in their tracks.  

HR departments are paying closer attention by making sure they determine if the person they see on the video interview turns out to be the employee they (eventually) meet in person. Other employers have noticed strange videos where the mouth is moving out of sync with the image.

The deepfake debacle is becoming such a problem for corporations that the FBI has gotten involved. This is proof positive that although technology has its advantages, sometimes the good ol’ fashioned manual method is better in the long run.

WATCH AN EXAMPLE OF DEEPFAKE:

OK WASSUP! discusses Technology:
Deepfake employees are out of control.