Deepfakes, Disinformation & the Rise of Trust Hackers

When Seeing Is No Longer Believing

Let’s picture this scenario together: a heavily relied-upon political leader is captured lauding war on live television. Markets crash, tensions rise around the globe… only to discover that what has just occurred was merely a deepfake technology. No war. Only pixels.

We are now in 2025 – digital deception is no longer science fiction, and cybersecurity is no longer about firewalls and password strength. It’s about defending the truth. 

In our pillar blog:

The Future of Cybersecurity: AI, Quantum Threats & Digital Deception 

we explored how emerging technologies are blurring the line between real and fake.

This blog post focuses on one alarming aspect: deepfakes – and not only why they pose a societal threat, but also why they constitute a career-defining opportunity for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

1. Deepfakes: The Next-Gen Weapon of Misinformation

Deepfakes are artificially generated videos or images that depict people doing or saying things they have never done.

These are not poorly fashioned Photoshop materials – these are hyper-real, emotionally enabled nuggets of technology that, in many cases, are nearly impossible to identify, much less replicate, without the use of specialized tools.

As noted by Maras & Alexandrou (2018), deepfakes employ artificial intelligence, engaging techniques that include face-swapping, audio-synthesis, and motion tracking to sufficiently mimic real persons. 

While these concepts have been around in one form or another, they were initially deployed to maximum effect for purposes of humor and entertainment, before a sharp pivot to:

• Political sabotage
• Market disruption
• Courtroom evidence forgery
• Revenge porn, blackmail, etc.
• Terroristic propaganda
• Corporate espionage, etc.

The scary part? Almost anyone with a laptop and access to a publicly accessible dataset can create a compelling deepfake at this point in time.

2. The Technology Behind the Illusion

Deepfakes are predicated upon generative AI models and models based on foundation and large language models (LLMs). These types of models are trained on large datasets and can accurately mimic both human expressions, voices, and complex movements. For example:

FaceSwap was used in an Indiana Jones movie to allow for the de-aging of Harrison Ford for a longer scene, depicting an alteration of images based on a proprietary VFX and AI-based image synthesis.

Deep Nostalgia AI takes a static image and animates it into a “video” by employing neural rendering techniques that simulate blinking, nodding, smiling, and other facial expressions.

Now apply the same technology to a political leader, a CEO of a company, or a jurist acting as a judge, and we can then see the risk.

In a report on Deepfake technology, ENISA stated that “deepfakes are weaponizing our reality,” and require defenders to exploit techniques to keep pace.

3. From Entertainment to Exploitation: Real World Examples

Let’s get specific.

Example 1: Deepfake CEO Heist ($25M)

In early 2024, scammers successfully executed a $25 million fund transfer using a deepfake video call that pretended to be the COO of the employee/dealer finance team in Hong Kong. Employees execute compliance with procedures, because it does not look wrong to them.

Example 2: Fake Video Evidence in a Law Case

A lawyer in an American law case represented his client using a video of an individual testifying to a confession; the fake video evidence was not discovered until forensic experts had to authenticate the video. 

The video was an AI fabrication that had taken open-source processes and data and utilized publicly available video.

These are not anomalies; they are, however, harbingers of a sea change and rule indicators of the next era of digital forgery.

4. The Career Imperative: Why this is Your Problem to Solve

Now, let’s get personal. If you are thinking about a career in cybersecurity, deepfakes and digital deception are not merely side quests; they are mission areas. These are essential to the ongoing dignity of any endeavor that utilizes digital deception, including cyberbullying, digital identity theft, opioid/contraband drug trafficking, and child sex trafficking.

The cybersecurity roles of the future, as well as their structure and related tasks, wherever they may be applied across a vast array of industries, will involve consideration of more than encryption and networks, wherever they lead to analyzed value. The careers of tomorrow will also include:

• Synthetic Media Analysts- some type of specialist that can detect manipulated media, and has been trained in digital forensic methodologies, cyber audits, and uses AI counter models on publicly available video.
• Dark Threat Hunters– skill set in narrative searches, leveraging problematic narratives that are being perpetuated with fabricated informational content.
• Policy Advisers & Cyber Regulators- a set of specialists who draw legal and ethical lines around what AI can replicate.

As the definition of cybersecurity expands to include truth prospectivity, trust constructs, and media validation, young women and men are freely entering into career opportunities—and vaulting still further and faster than you can imagine.

5. Responding to Deepfakes: Cybersecurity Professionals

A comprehensive investigation of 84 articles on deepfakes concluded that multi-layered approaches are needed and that cybersecurity professionals will play a key role in most of them:

• Technology-Based Detection Tools

Cyber professionals are designing AI that fights AI; specifically, deepfake detection models that identify subtle differences in lighting, shadows, blinking rates, and facial discrepancies.

• Authentication Protocols

Some movement is occurring on the idea of adding a cryptographic signature in original content (which is called content provenance), giving agencies the capability to verify source data for whatever they are buying across multiple digital channels.

• Cyber Policy and Ethics

Governance roles are being slowly established; cybersecurity professionals are being called upon to assist in developing national and corporate anti-synthetic media policies.

• Education and Public Training

Offering a range of training from basic awareness campaigns to professional upskilling, cybersecurity experts are educating a diverse group of citizens and companies to verify digital media before acting upon it.

6. Turning the Threat into an Opportunity: Your Part in What Happens Next

In this “post-truth era,” everything can be considered fictional when examining online content – whether it’s news clips or product reviews. As uncertainty becomes widespread, the ability of cybersecurity professionals to detect, defend, and respond to deception becomes exponentially valuable.

Your career decisions here are more focused on defending reality.

MAGES Institute programs in cybersecurity are more than just training on fundamentals; we teach you new AI tools, applied ethical frameworks, and threat analysis methodologies for addressing challenges that have never existed before.

Whether your aspirations are for a forensic analyst, threat hunter, or policy developer, you cannot select a more valuable or impactful time to choose cybersecurity.

Conclusion: Trust is the New Battlefield

As anyone can make anything and make it seem real, trust is quickly becoming the greatest vulnerability.

Yet, it is also becoming the ultimate opportunity for those willing to protect it.

The deepfake issue will not resolve itself. However, if you are ready to become part of the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, it just may be your career that helps restore what the internet has lost: conviction in the truth.