We have all seen artificial intelligence's capabilities when it comes to creating images. However, cybercriminals are using it to create profile pictures of non-existent people and combine them with job descriptions and other information stolen from real profiles on LinkedIn to create fake profiles. These profiles are using uniquely generated photos, which makes them harder to detect. Thousands of these fake profiles indicate a new trend, however, researchers are confused about the motive behind this new trend. According to the most common idea, these profiles are attempting to access various invite-only LinkedIn groups.

Social media profiles that contain telltale signs of fakery still convince large numbers of users to accept friendship requests – suggesting people are overly trusting of what they see online. Deepfake technology, which can generate images of non-existent people using artificial intelligence, has been used by scammers to set up fake social media accounts. US intelligence officials have claimed that foreign spies use profiles with deepfake images to establish contacts and glean information on the business social network LinkedIn. We have corrected the details of how the research is being published.