Cash-rich cybercriminals are learning that the easiest way to make money on the stock markets while laundering cash at the same time is to use deepfake videos to impact share prices, albeit temporarily.
According to Tim Grieveson, Senior Vice President of Global Cyber Risk, BitSight: “Using video and audio deepfakes to manipulate share prices for financial gain is definitely happening, but is something no one is currently talking about.”
“Using a deepfake to announce a takeover could, for instance, drive up a stock in which the threat actor owns shares. Alternatively, a negative announcement such as a dire profits warning could be used to lower the share price so that the threat actor could buy the shares at a knock-down price, only to sell them again when the profits warning was seen to be fake” adds Grieveson.
It is simple to create a convincing deepfake of a CEO or CFO that will affect the markets for a short time. A short time is all the cybercriminals need to sell or short the shares in question before returning to the dark net with their illicit profits.
The first well-known example of a deepfake released online that affected the stock market was an alleged photograph of the Pentagon on fire. The fake image was spread by dozens of accounts on social media, including RT, a Russian state-media Twitter account with more than three million followers. Then, as the false news of a Pentagon fire and speculation concerning possible explanations and repercussions spread across social media, the New York Stock Exchange dipped briefly.
The deepfake in question was not even a particularly good one. Some of the fence was disappearing and there were other glaring giveaways obvious to anyone with much experience of deepfakes. But most people, even those who work in finance, do not have such experience. In any case, the off-the-shelf software needed to create extremely convincing deepfakes is now inexpensive and widely available. It is essential that people in finance, in particular, therefore, understand the potential threat of deepfake news and always check the source of the picture, video or podcast in question.
Important that people understand data provenance
“It is also important to understand the importance of data provenance when viewing video and audio material on platforms such as TikTok, where a fake video of a CEO confirming non-existent or fake merger rumors can impact share value if viewed by gullible investors or brokers,” says Patrick Harding, chief architect, Ping Identity
Deepfake sex videos are also understood to have been used to try to blackmail staff at financial institutions into revealing access codes or simply clicking on a weaponized link in an incoming email. This is an extension of the straightforward blackmailing of private individuals with deepfake sex videos of them purportedly doing things they might not wish their wives or their servants to see, which really began a couple of years ago.
According to Elijah Jackson, Blockchain Industry Commentator at MyChargeBack: “Covid and the lockdown were a boon to online scammers. Blackmailing people with deepfakes, purportedly showing them having sex, became a common method of extortion. There are suicides all the time, and the victims are not just adults. In January of this year, the FBI found that at least 20 teenagers had committed suicide after having been targeted by sextortion scams. Cybersecurity helpdesks receive calls threatening suicide on a weekly basis.”
With the US elections looming, political deepfakes are likely to start appearing and may generate market fluctuations. Nation states such as Russia or North Korea may also distribute deepfakes to weaken the American democratic system while playing the stock market to their advantage.
