Deepfake technology has crossed a critical threshold. What was impossible 10 years ago and required specific expertise only a few years ago is now cheap and accessible. Worse, it’s now good enough to fool a wide range of employees and executives. In fact, a 2025 Gartner survey found that 43% of cybersecurity leaders experienced at least one audio deepfake, and 37% experienced video deepfakes in the past year.

These findings reflect what we see in the wild. Deepfakes are no longer a hypothetical future risk; they are showing up in real workflows, decisions and incidents. Meeting this sophisticated and evolving challenge demands rapid verification, cross-functional coordination and clear communication to limit the impact of synthetic media.

The collapse of heuristics

Humans tend to rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to judge what is real. Historically, trusting a familiar face or voice was enough to feel confident. Early deepfakes began to test these instincts, but they were often marred by telltale flaws, such as unusual blinking, mangled fingers, or blurred text.

Unfortunately, that tried-and-true approach to distinguishing fact from fiction is no longer reliable. The obvious cues that made deepfakes easier to spot have been eliminated by the latest generation of generative AI models, such as Nano Banana Pro. As a result, the heuristics humans have historically relied on cannot be trusted in isolation.

Deepfakes as tools for financial fraud

Deepfakes have quickly become a powerful enabler of financial fraud. This is largely because most business communication channels, like video and voice calls, remain unauthenticated. A single convincing audio or video call, seemingly from a trusted executive, can bypass established controls in minutes. Employees in these scenarios often follow instructions or approve large fund transfers, believing they are acting on legitimate requests.

A well-known example of this risk occurred at Arup, where the company’s CFO and other video call participants were convincingly simulated using AI-generated deepfakes, and an employee transferred roughly $25 million.

Until robust dual authentication for phone calls is standard, organizations remain exposed to anyone who can convincingly mimic a CFO or CEO.

Deepfakes as reputational weapons

Financial fraud remains a serious concern with deepfakes, but they are increasingly being used as reputational weapons, engineered to erode confidence among investors, customers and business partners. Attackers need only a brief clip, often as little as 20 seconds, to impersonate an executive and unravel years’ worth of reputation and trust built with key stakeholders. Beyond the C-cuite, anyone with a digital footprint, from a podcast appearance to a short social media clip, could become a target.

Recent cases show how rapidly these false narratives can escalate and cause real damage:

• Market destabilization: In January 2026, the Bombay Stock Exchange was forced to issue an urgent warning after deepfake videos of its CEO spread online, promoting fraudulent stock tips and promises of “supernormal profits.”
• Public disruption: After a December 2025 earthquake in the UK, a synthetic image of a collapsed bridge went viral, leading to train cancellations.
• Internal sabotage: In a private case, a former employee created deepfakes of company leaders making inflammatory remarks and distributed them directly to business partners, intending to inflict reputational damage.

Each of these incidents forced the affected organizations into crisis mode. The rapid spread of deepfakes on digital platforms means false content often circulates faster than teams can investigate or respond to it. By the time the truth emerges, the damage to relationships and reputation may already be done.

Building resilience against deepfakes

Deepfake incidents differ from other cyber attacks. While they may not cause immediate financial loss, they often unfold publicly, spread faster than investigations can keep pace and exploit human trust at scale. For most organizations, handling the widespread uncertainty and reputational damage stemming from a deepfake incident exceeds the capabilities of internal teams, especially when public trust is at stake.

Addressing this challenge requires more than technical controls. Business leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance of being able to respond to these threats quickly and decisively. Effective response now depends on capabilities that enable organizations to verify content, limit its spread and communicate with stakeholders in a timely and credible way. In practice, this includes:

• Technical analysis: Expert forensic review of audio and video content to determine whether the content has been manipulated and to generate forensic proof for stakeholders.
• Legal support: The ability to act once harmful content has been identified, including coordinating takedown requests by working with legal experts to support the removal of malicious or defamatory content from online platforms.
• Clear communication: Public relations and communications support to help organizations craft effective messages for employees, investors and customers during a rapidly evolving incident.

The path forward: Authentication as the end state

In the long term, addressing deepfakes will likely require broad adoption of authentication and watermarking standards, like how web browsers display a lock icon to signal a secure, authenticated connection. For example, organizations may soon embed watermarks in official communications, such as press statements, interviews and earnings calls.

Yet, watermarks will not resolve every challenge. Some authentic content, like revelations from whistleblowers, will inevitably circulate without official marks. Attackers will still be able to fake this kind of content, leaving us in a continual cat-and-mouse game, in which journalists and forensic experts must draw on alternative sources and advanced tools to verify materials. Establishing trust in digital media will remain an ongoing process, as both attackers and defenders adapt.

For business and risk professionals, the takeaway is clear: True resilience no longer depends on heuristics and trusting what we see or hear. It depends on how quickly organizations can verify reality, coordinate a response with expert support and resources and restore trust before misinformation becomes the dominant narrative.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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