Deepfakes and Cybersecurity: How Much of a Threat Are They?

The ability to digitally insert actors into films has been available since the mid-1990s, when it was first used to finish The Crow after the tragic on-set death of lead actor Brandon Lee. Techniques to do this in a very realistic and natural-looking way have been available for years now, so why is there such a panic brewing over deepfakes? Before deepfakes, this sort of thing required expensive CGI software and highly specialized knowledge that is limited to a relative handful of digital effects studios. Deepfakes employ artificial intelligence and allow anyone with a decent computer to make their own realistic fake videos starring just about anyone in the world, working only from a set of images or videos of their target. Deepfakes are a relatively new phenomenon, first starting to emerge on the internet in late 2017.