Protecting Against Deepfake Attacks: Essential Strategies for Executives

Understanding Deepfake Attacks

Imagine hopping onto an unexpected video call one afternoon. The screen lights up with the familiar face of your CEO, and the voice sounds spot-on, it’s the same tone, pace, and inflection you’ve come to recognize in countless executive briefings. But behind this digital façade is an imposter, exploiting artificially generated face-and-voice technology known as a deepfake. This is not a science fiction scenario. Deepfake scams targeting corporate leaders are increasing at an alarming rate, with criminals faking senior executives’ identities to authorize wire transfers, extract sensitive incident reports, or manipulate procurement contracts. In a single quarter of 2025, over $200 million was reportedly lost due to deepfake-based attacks.

In recent cases, security teams discovered criminals rigging virtual meetings with AI-generated images and cloned voices, hoping to trick unsuspecting staff into granting approvals. Executives, by their authority, become especially coveted targets. In this blog post, I want to outline why deepfakes have gained such traction and how an organization can build a proactive defense strategy that extends beyond traditional email-based checks and into the realm of video and audio verification.

Mechanics of Deepfake Attacks

At their core, deepfakes rely on artificial intelligence to create near-perfect imitations of human voices and appearances. By collecting audio snippets or images of an individual, attackers can train machine-learning models to clone that person’s vocal patterns or facial expressions. As these technologies advance, the amount of reference data required is decreasing, meaning just a brief sound clip or a handful of photos may be enough. From there, criminals can use voice calls, video feeds, and even pre-recorded messages that seem legitimate.

What makes deepfakes especially hard to detect is their adaptability across multiple channels. A criminal can hijack phone systems, online meeting platforms, and social media videos, weaving illusions that overwhelm our usual methods of verifying authenticity. This type of attack is no longer limited to suspicious emails or poorly worded text messages. Cybercriminals have a growing arsenal of techniques to undermine our trust in supposedly “face-to-face” or “ear-to-ear” conversations.

Recent Real-World Deepfake Incidents

Recent scams are hitting disturbingly close to home. In one case, an advertising agency narrowly avoided a significant financial loss when attackers used an AI-generated voice along with video footage stolen from YouTube to impersonate a high-profile CEO on a fake Microsoft Teams call. Although the attempt was discovered in time, other companies haven’t been as lucky. Reports suggest a 15% rise in deepfake phishing attempts over the past year, contributing to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The CFOs and CEOs who typically handle transactions and high-value decisions are the bull’s-eye of this growing threat.

Why Executives Are So Vulnerable

There’s a reason hackers focus on senior leaders. Executives often hold the keys to critical financial accounts, intellectual property, and sensitive corporate data. Their instructions, especially if delivered with a sense of urgency, can accelerate approvals or bypass routine IT controls. When a supposed executive appears on a video call or calls an employee directly, there is an automatic assumption of authenticity. Attackers count on this default trust. By imitating familiar faces and voices, they can get around standard processes, pressuring employees to “act now” before verifying the request through additional channels.

The Accelerating Threat Landscape

Deepfake attacks are projected to outpace more conventional social engineering methods, such as basic phishing or business email compromise, given how effectively they leverage visual and vocal trust cues. Boards and CISOs now list deepfake attacks among their top security priorities, anticipating that losses will multiply if robust protocols aren’t implemented soon. With technology evolving faster than ever, it’s essential to protect all communication channels against these attacks.

Establish a Multi-Channel Control

One of the most impactful defensive measures is to require at least two forms of verification before executing high-stakes decisions. For example, whenever you receive a request to transfer funds, confirm credentials, or share sensitive data, you must validate the request through an entirely different channel. This can involve requesting a quick call-back via a separate phone line or confirming through an encrypted messaging platform. By forcing attackers to forge not just a single call or video feed, but also a second distinct channel, you drastically reduce the likelihood that a deepfake will slip through. Just as importantly, your staff must receive clear guidance that no “urgent” directive overrides this two-step policy.

Deploy Content Integrity Gateways for Video Meetings

Modern collaboration platforms often allow for pre-meeting verification or “lobby” checks. By pairing these platforms with deepfake detection engines, you can screen participants before they ever join a call. Any suspicious or synthetically generated visual signals can trigger additional authentication, such as a multi-factor prompt asking the user to verify their identity via a separate method. While this adds a layer of complexity to the meeting set-up, it’s especially vital for calls that involve financial decisions, mergers and acquisitions, or other sensitive conversations. Requiring extra steps may be preferable to risking costly scams.

Conduct Tabletop Exercises with Synthetic Media Scenarios

Formal incident-response drills often revolve around data breaches or ransomware attacks, but deepfake attack scenarios should be part of your next tabletop exercise. Simulate a meeting request from what appears to be your CEO, instructing an accounts payable manager to send a large prepayment. Observe how quickly skepticism arises, whether the multi-channel call-back protocol is followed, and how well your team records the incident timeline. Pay close attention to detection latency and whether participants adhered to established policies under perceived pressure. The insights you gain in these drills can expose blind spots and reinforce guidelines before a real event strikes.

Reduce the Social Media Footprint of Key Leaders

Executives are increasingly visible online, posting video content or sharing keynote addresses on platforms such as YouTube and LinkedIn. While an online presence is valuable for branding and thought leadership, it also furnishes criminals with audio and video samples that can train deepfake attack models. Auditing your leadership team’s publicly available footage and limiting high-fidelity content reduces the fuel deepfake creators rely on. When media exposure is necessary, consider releasing controlled-format “safe reels” that minimize the potency or clarity of voice recordings. This delicate balance preserves public engagement without making it too easy for scammers to synthesize your executive’s voice or likeness.

Implement Deepfake Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Cybersecurity key performance indicators typically revolve around detection and response times. With deepfakes attacks, you can expand these metrics to track how effectively you’re screening synthetic media. For instance, measure how often false positives or false negatives occur with your detection engines, and monitor the average time it takes to confirm or reject suspicious calls. Reporting these metrics to your board or risk committee underscores the seriousness of the threat and the need for continued investment. By keeping deepfake-focused KPIs front and center, you align resources with the areas that have the greatest potential for exploitation.

Deepfake Attacks Conclusion

The rise of deepfake attacks poses a challenge to our ability to distinguish genuine human interaction from a deepfake attack. Executive teams, entrusted with high-level decision-making, are natural targets. Defending against these deceptions requires a multi-layered approach: rigorous two-pronged verification, widespread adoption of watermarking and content integrity checks, targeted training, and the disciplined practice of zero-trust assumptions for all audio and video inputs.

By proactively reducing the online footprint of key leaders, regularly rehearsing deepfake incident scenarios, and closely monitoring performance data, organizations can stay one step ahead of cybercriminals. Strengthening deepfake defenses is not merely a technical exercise—it’s about preserving the trust, integrity, and financial stability that rest on every executive-level communication. As these fraud tactics evolve, so too must our commitment to recognizing and repelling synthetic impostors.