In the last 12 months, the explosive growth of malicious deepfakes and synthetic media has turned an already challenging situation into an almost insurmountable problem for law enforcement, requiring a restructuring of the investigative and forensic process.

This State of Deepfakes report exposes our findings from work alongside the intelligence community inside and outside Ukraine over the past year. It outlines an attack framework for the deployment of synthetic media as a cognitive weapon in modern conflict.

We’ve now entered an era where seeing is no longer believing. Gen-AI didn’t just create new content; it created a brand new attack surface: reality itself. Now, when it comes to deepfake detection, the nature of forensic analysis is turned on its head, and intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and judicial authorities are feeling the pain. This guide is a primer on deepfake detection and synthetic media for law enforcement professionals and forensic analysts.

In this report our goal is to show where bad actors are operating, in which geographies they act, what techniques and frameworks they use, who their targets are and which technologies they are using. We also focused on ongoing events like the USA 2024 Elections, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The report addresses the escalating challenges posed by deepfake technology in the realm of online identity verification, a critical component in various financial transactions. The report highlights the vulnerability of Know Your Customer (KYC) systems, traditionally involving steps like ID verification, face matching, and liveness detection, to deepfake manipulations.