In today’s digital landscape, threats to businesses come in many forms. Phishing emails, ransomware, and business email compromise are on the rise. Business email compromise, or “BEC” is one of the biggest threats to businesses today. To protect against sophisticated cyberattacks, organizations need to stay vigilant. Taking precautions to secure sensitive data, financial assets, and reputation is key. An emerging threat that deserves special attention is deepfakes. In this blog, we’ll share why deepfakes pose a security threat, along with tips for recognizing and responding to them.
What are deepfakes?
Deepfakes are manipulated audio or video content that convincingly impersonate real individuals. Deepfakes use artificial intelligence (AI) to create hyper-realistic, fabricated media. These can include:
- Fake Videos: Faces are superimposed onto other people’s bodies, making it appear as though they said or did something they never actually did.
- Voice Cloning: AI-generated voices mimic real individuals. This makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake recordings.
- Impersonation: Deepfakes can target anyone. CEOs, employees, or even clients can be impacted—which can lead to financial losses, reputational damage, and legal consequences.
The Impact of deepfakes on businesses
Business email compromise (BEC) is leveling up thanks to deepfakes. Imagine a scenario where a CEO gets a video message from a trusted partner, asking for an urgent money transfer. The CEO believes it’s legitimate and quickly sends the money. Later, the CEO follows up with their partner about the transfer. They have no idea what they’re talking about, because that the video was a deepfake. By that point, the damage is done.
The financial losses and damage to a company’s reputation caused by deepfakes can be devastating.
How managed IT and cybersecurity services protect against deepfakes
As a managed service provider (MSP), we specialize in helping businesses defend against cyber threats. Here’s how we can help you stay ahead of deepfakes and other cybersecurity threats:
Essential tools:
- Advanced Threat Detection:
- AI-powered tools continuously monitor communications for signs of deep fakes. Suspicious videos, voice recordings, or emails trigger alerts, allowing us to investigate promptly. Services like endpoint detection and response (EDR) and MDR for Microsoft 365 can help stop threats delivered by email from becoming a serious problem for your business.
- SIEM solutions combine advanced threat detection with audit and event logs, so you know exactly what’s going on in your systems.
- Security Awareness Training:
- We educate your team to recognize deep fakes and phishing attempts.
- Realistic, safe, simulated attacks help employees practice what they’ve learned and improve their response. These attempts, known as phishing campaigns, are customized to your business. This gives you a baseline to understand how well-versed your team is in recognizing threats, and the tools to improve.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):
- MFA adds an extra layer of security to help prevent unauthorized access.
- Biometric MFA (fingerprint, facial recognition) can further enhance protection.
Strategic services
- Incident Response Planning:
- Developing detailed plans for handling cybersecurity events can help your organization prepare. Ensuring these are accurate and updated regularly is key.
- Regular monitoring and testing ensure incident readiness.
- Vendor Due Diligence:
- As an IT partner, we assess third-party vendors’ security practices in addition to our own.
- The tools and providers we partner with to help protect your business are best in class. The selection process is rigorous and thanks to our SOC 2 Type II compliance, we take additional precautions to make sure the people we work with take security as seriously as we do.
- Regular Audits and Compliance:
- Security audits and assessments identify vulnerabilities, so you can find the gaps before threat actors do. Regular Security Risk Assessments are one of the best security investments you can make for your business. ADNET recommends doing these on an annual basis, which is a best practice and requirement for many compliance regulations.
Why choose ADNET’s cybersecurity services to defend against deepfakes?
Our experienced team understands the evolving threat landscape. We have over sixty highly skilled team members across multiple locations throughout the Northeast. We don’t just say we’re experts – we prove it, as an award-winning MSP with industry-leading partnerships and credentials. We’re a SOC 2 Type II compliant organization, CMMC-RPO, and a globally recognized managed cloud and IT services provider with a dedicated cybersecurity team.
Cost-effectiveness
Outsourcing IT services can be more cost-effective than hiring internally. Maintaining an in-house team is expensive, and labor intensive. You need budget and time to ensure your internal IT team can continue learning and growing as the industry evolves. If you don’t have an abundance of those – an IT partner can help.
Business Continuity
Our goal is to ensure minimal downtime during incidents. As a SMB ourselves, we understand the impact to downtime. ADNET has backup solutions in place that can help you get back to business quickly.
Compliance
Navigate compliance requirements with our guidance. Whether you’re subject to DFIR, HIPAA, CMMC, PCI, or something else, ADNET helps organization’s meet and maintain compliance requirements.
Let’s fortify your business against deepfakes and cyber threats. Your peace of mind is our priority. Reach out to us for managed IT and cybersecurity services you can trust.
