Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader with U.S. headquarters in Irving, has announced new innovations in its enterprise platform and consumer cybersecurity products that protect against the rapidly growing threat of AI-based attacks and fraud.

Trend said its research shows that cybercriminals are catching on to the explosion of enterprise AI use, resulting in a dramatic increase in AI-based tools available on the criminal underground. The company said those tools are cheaper and more accessible than ever, enabling criminals at any skill level to more easily launch attacks at scale that mislead victims for purposes of extortion, identity theft, fraud, or misinformation.

“Our latest research reveals several new deepfake tools that make it easy for cybercriminals at all skill levels to launch damaging scams, social engineering, and security bypass attempts,” Kevin Simzer, Trend’s COO, said in a statement. “We’re leading the industry in fighting back for both our enterprise and consumer customers with new capabilities to detect deepfakes and other forms of AI fraud.”

Trend Micro said that detecting and defeating these AI-based methods is key to better managing attack surface risk for enterprises and lowering overall online risk for consumers—71% of whom, in a recent Trend survey, viewed deepfakes negatively and believed that one of their top uses is for fraud, the company said.

Detecting GenAI deepfakes—including on fraudulent video calls

Video still: Trend Micro

Available soon in the Trend Vision One platform, new deepfake detection technology will use a variety of advanced methods to detect AI-generated content, the company said.

Capability will also be available for consumers via the Trend Micro Deepfake Inspector—a free solution that the company said is designed to alert users to potential deepfakes while they are on video call..

“Like past shifts in the threat and IT landscape, we’ve seen the challenge of securing AI and risen to it,” Simzer said.

Going beyond techniques like image noise analysis and color detection, Trend Micro said the platform also analyses user behavioral elements to provide a stronger approach to detecting and stopping deepfakes. Once detected, Trend immediately alerts enterprise security teams, enabling them to learn, educate, and take proactive measures to prevent future attacks.

Trend Micro’s Deepfake Inspector can help verify if a party on a live video conversation is using deepfake technology, alerting users that the person or persons with whom they are conversing may not be who they appear to be.

“Readily available, high-quality GenAI applications are now capable of creating photo-realistic video content that can deceive or mislead an audience. Given the low barriers to entry in using these tools and their increasing sophistication, developing a methodological approach to detecting GenAI deepfake content has become necessary,” Gartner analyst Dan Ayoub said.

Threats and solutions

Trend Micro said the deepfakes pose a significant risk to modern enterprises and individuals because an undetected deepfake can result in financial impacts, job losses, legal challenges, reputation damage, identity theft, and potential harm to mental or physical health.

In one of Trend Micro’s recent studies, 36% of consumers reported experiencing a scam attempt using a deepfake. The FBI has previously warned of deepfake technology being used along with video calls to carry out business email compromise attacks, and to fraudulently apply for remote working positions.

The launch of Trend’s new solutions is part of a companywide mission to secure customers’ AI journey, the company said. Supporting a zero-trust strategy, Trend said it also recently released new features for Trend Vision One designed to:

• Centralize management of employees’ GenAI access and usage
• Inspect prompts to prevent data leaks and malicious injections
• Filter GenAI content to meet compliance requirements
• Defend against large language model (LLM) attacks

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