Deepfakes, stolen personal information helping scammers get remote IT jobs

Scammers are now using deepfakes and stealing the personal information of people and applying for remote job interviews and working from home.

Such practices are being seen in the world of information technology as IT firms still allow most of their workforce to work from anywhere.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has warned of an increase in complaints reporting the use of deep fakes and stolen Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to apply for a variety of remote work and work-at-home positions.

Deepfakes include a video, an image, or a recording convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not done or said.

"Complaints report the use of voice spoofing, or potentially voice deepfakes, during online interviews of the potential applicants. In these interviews, the actions and lip movement of the person seen interviewed on-camera do not completely coordinate with the audio of the person speaking," the FBI said in a statement.

At times, actions such as coughing, sneezing, or other auditory actions are not aligned with what is presented visually.

"Victims have reported the use of their identities and pre-employment background checks discovered PII given by some of the applicants belonged to another individual," said the FBI.

The remote work or work-from-home positions include information technology and computer programming, database, and software-related job functions. Notably, some reported positions include access to customer PII, financial data, corporate IT databases, and/or proprietary information.

The FBI March last year warned that cyber-criminals will almost certainly use deepfakes for cyber and foreign influence operations in the next 12 to 18 months. (AA/IANS)