How to Detect Deepfakes: Audio, Data
Say a coworker joins your video call. Or maybe it's someone from your bank, or someone in your family. And something about them just feels off to you. Ask them to turn their head to the side. Or ask them to wave a hand across their chin. A scammer who's using a fake face often can't keep it steady when they do that. Then you'll see the fake face start to slip.
A company in Hong Kong lost $25.6 million. The finance chief their staff saw on screen was fake.
TrendAI is the group that reported on that Hong Kong case. A scammer's fake face looks best when it's looking straight at you. When they turn, their hair and glasses get blurry edges.
A fake person's lips only slip out of sync for 50 to 100 milliseconds. You can't normally see something that fast.
By the end of this, you'll know three simple things to try. They'll take you less than a minute. You can try them on any call.
The first thing you check is their mouth.
Scammers made that fake call in Hong Kong in 2024. Then in 2026, scammers went after Italy's biggest bank. People keep losing more and more money.
Bitdefender says the fakes aren't clumsy anymore. Scammers now copy people's faces, voices and habits.
A scammer has to make the fake match the real person's voice. The scammer has to match the light in the room too. And the scammer has to keep every edge sharp.
On a video call, you see 30 pictures every second. Can a scammer get all 30 of them right?
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Scammers make the face itself look better than anything else. If you just stare at the face, you'll get fooled.
If people just use their eyes, they catch 60 to 70 percent of fakes. If software checks the video one picture at a time, it catches 95 percent. That difference is what really matters here. The scammer hides the fake in the movement.
The bank Intesa Sanpaolo lost about $108 million. The scammers used a copied voice to do the talking. The bank still hasn't gotten millions of it back.
Listen for a voice that sounds flat and metallic. Real people swallow, breathe and stumble when they talk.
An innocent person got indicted because of a fake video. The case was dropped, and the man who faked it pleaded guilty.
Trending Topics is who reported on the Intesa call. Its chairman got a fake text from his boss, then a call in a lawyer's copied voice. He believed it was real, so he had his finance team send the money.
You trust a face before anything else. You only start to doubt it a moment later. The people making these fakes count on that moment. That's why you should look away from the face.
Hang up and call them back. Use a number you already have for them.
Ask them to turn their head to the side. Watch whether their lips close when they say M, B or P. Check whether the edges of their hair blur or flicker.
A fake face can get past you at a glance. But its edges and lips can't get past you.
First, notice when the call feels off to you. Then ask them to turn their head to the side. Watch their mouth and the edges of their face. If you see two odd clues, hang up.
CaraComp's write-up goes deeper into all of this. Their guide covers shadows, where the eyes look, and skin.
Cara Candelario is the one who wrote the guide. You can't prove anything with one odd clue on its own. But you'll rarely see just one odd clue.
Tell your parents how these calls work. Save your bank's real phone number tonight. Never send money while you're still on the call.
Scammers got $499,000 with one call in Singapore, but police got it back. A finance director saw bosses on screen who were fake. Would you have caught them?
You can't trust a face just because it looks real on screen. But now you know where to look.
Tonight, pick a code word with your family. Say it on every call that's about money. A scammer won't know the word.
Scammers are already copying people's faces and voices. Set up your code word before they call you.
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