● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportMedium impact1 neutral
Deepfake Readiness Drills Address Rising Voice and Video Cloning Attacks
Key points
- Deepfake attacks are increasing, targeting payments and access requests.
- 62% of organizations experienced a deepfake attack in the past year.
- Deepfake readiness drills test verification processes proactively.
- Defense against deepfakes relies more on process than perception.
The Rise of Deepfake Attacks
Cloned voices and synthetic video calls are now being used in payment fraud, help desk resets, and access requests. This type of attack, once theoretical, is now appearing in incident reports. A 2025 Gartner survey of 302 cybersecurity leaders found that 62% of organizations experienced at least one deepfake attack in the prior 12 months. Specifically, 43% reported deepfake audio call incidents and 37% encountered deepfakes on video calls.
Beyond Financial Fraud
While fraudulent wire transfers are a common deepfake objective, cloned voices can also be used for other malicious purposes. These include calling help desks to move multi-factor authentication (MFA) tokens or requesting new global administrator accounts under the guise of an audit. Such actions can create persistent vulnerabilities that may go undetected for months, unlike a wire transfer that surfaces during reconciliation.
Limitations of Traditional Security Awareness
Traditional security awareness training often focuses on identifying 'tells' like awkward phrasing or suspicious email addresses. However, voice clones and real-time face swaps are becoming increasingly sophisticated, leaving fewer such indicators. The FBI, in a May 2025 warning about AI-generated voice messages, advised confirming identity via independently sourced phone numbers, acknowledging that cloned voices can sound nearly identical to real individuals.
The Need for Process-Based Defense
An Osterman Research study from January 2026, involving 128 US security and IT leaders, revealed that 60% lacked confidence in their ability to counter deepfake attacks, even with existing training. This indicates that relying on individual perception to detect deepfakes is insufficient. The defense against these advanced threats must shift towards robust, process-based verification steps rather than solely on an employee's ability to discern a fake.
Implementing Deepfake Readiness Drills
A deepfake readiness drill provides a structured method for security teams to identify weaknesses in their verification protocols without real-world consequences. These drills allow organizations to test whether their policies for verifying unusual payment and access requests hold up against sophisticated impersonations, on their own schedule and with no actual risk involved.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
The daily brief
One email each morning: the day's tech stories, clustered across outlets and summarized. No account needed.
One email a day. Unsubscribe in one click, any time.
Today's brief
Spend a few minutes, get the whole day. Every topic's top stories in one hands-free rundown — listen, watch, or read the transcript.
▶ Play today's brief
New every morning, and the back catalogue is archived by date.
Reporting from
Organizations are increasingly facing deepfake attacks involving cloned voices and synthetic video calls, used for payment fraud and unauthorized access. Implementing deepfake readiness drills allows security teams to identify vulnerabilities in verification processes before real incidents occur. This approach shifts defense from relying on auditory detection to strengthening procedural safeguards against sophisticated impersonations.