Deepfakes: real or imaginary? 

In the coming years, AI-generated, highly realistic fake images, audio, and videos collectively known as deepfakes, could pose a serious cybersecurity threat to the accounting and finance sector. Is this simply hysteria or are deepfakes a real and growing threat?  
It is true that what began as entertainment technology is evolving at speed and may soon be capable of facilitating sophisticated fraud, through using manipulated media to help falsify financial documents or impersonate people in authority. The concern here is that these developments risk undermining the financial sector’s reliance on trust and transparency as deepfakes can be used to forge communications, fake signatures, or fabricate invoices and audit trails, thereby making it difficult to distinguish real transactions from fraudulent ones. The consequences could include direct financial loss, costly legal disputes, or damaged credibility which could take years to restore. 

Defence strategies 

To limit the aforementioned risks companies will need to combine human vigilance with up to-date technological defences, which can analyse media for subtle anomalies such as unnatural facial movements and mismatched audio, or verify document authenticity through digital signatures and metadata checks. The good news is that products such as Microsoft Video Authenticator are being developed to bolster defences against manipulated content as one part of a robust cybersecurity framework, including multi-factor authentication and regular employee training on social engineering and phishing. Caution in external communications is also vital, especially for high-value transactions where requests should be verified via multiple channels to prevent a company falling victim to deepfake-enabled scams. 

Real or imaginary? 

In summary, deepfakes do represent an urgent and evolving risk for the accounting profession. While the current generation of deepfakes may not be hard to spot, they will undoubtedly become more sophisticated as time goes by, as cybercrime is a lucrative business. However, by employing the latest detection tools, coupled with strong cybersecurity measures including staff training to increase vigilance, organisations can mitigate these threats, protect their integrity and preserve stakeholder trust.