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In my decades of working in cybersecurity, I have never seen a threat quite like the one we face today. Anyones image, likeness, and voice can be replicated on a photorealistic level cheaply and quickly. Malicious actors are using this novel technology to weaponize our personhood in attacks against our own organizations, livelihoods, and loved ones. As generative AI technology advances and the line between real and synthetic content blurs even further, so does the potential risk for companies, governments, and everyday people. Businesses are especially vulnerable to the rise of applicant fraudinterviewing or hiring a phony candidate with the intent of breaching an organization for financial gain or even nation-state espionage. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 25% of job candidates globally will be fake, driven largely by AI-generated profiles. Recruiters already encounter this mounting threat by noticing unnatural movements when speaking with candidates via videoconferencing. For many companies, the proverbial front door is wide open to these attacks without adequate protection from deepfake candidates or look-alike candidate swaps in the HR interview process. Its no longer enough to just protect against the vulnerabilities in our tech stacks and internal infrastructures. We must take security a step further to address todays uncharted AI-driven threat landscape, protecting our people and organizations from fraud and extortion before trust erodes and can no longer be restored. Fraud isnt new, but it is taking a new form Heres the thing: Synthetic identity fraud happens in the real world every day, and has for years. Think of the financial industry, where stolen Social Security numbers and other government identifiers allow fraudsters to open and close accounts in other peoples names and ransack savings and retirement funds. The difference now is that hackers no longer have to lurk in the shadows. Instead, a synthetically generated person shows up to a videoconferencing meeting and speaks to you live, and 80% of the time, people will perceive the AI-generated voice as its real counterpart. How do you protect against that? Interview impersonations are not new within HR. There have been cases where an employee’s family member interviews with a company, and a different person shows up on that first day of work. But as it becomes increasingly easier to create deepfakes (taking only about 10 minutes and a web browser), it becomes increasingly more difficult to differentiate between whats real and whats fake across applicants LinkedIn profiles, résumés, and the actual candidates themselves. Preparing our HR departments for a new attack landscape Unfortunately, HR teamsoften understaffed and using outdated techare frequently perceived as the weakest part of the organization by hackers and fraudsters given their lack of security focus (other than perhaps background checks). That makes the HR department the ideal entry point for an adversary. Coming through the front door via the hiring process is often far easier and more fruitful for malicious actors than the back door (i.e., taking advantage of infrastructure vulnerabilities). Further, adversaries could even capture recordings of executives during the interview process for future impersonation attacks or gain access to product road maps or other strategic information that could compromise the company down the road. HR leaders must be aware that fraud at the hiring level can take many different forms, but they cant be the only ones. The C-suite must also recognize these potential dangers to better equip HR teams to combat deepfake and impersonation fraud on the frontlines. For example, real-time deepfake video technology can be used to impersonate someone during virtual interviews, matching facial expressions and lip-syncing. Fraudsters will also use sophisticated voice cloning to simulate accents, intonations, or entire voices. Tools that most people use every day, like ChatGPT and Claude, are being used to fabricate résumés and cover letters, and even code samples or portfolio materials tailored to specific job postings. Information gleaned at any part of the interview process can be weaponized, including an organizations competitive strengths and weaknesses. The individuals who commit applicant fraud can repurpose information to solicit personal or confidential company information that can be used later for more severe extortion. We have already seen nation-states like North Korea leverage these techniques to infiltrate enterprises through their human resources departments. Its time we reassess security at every level and within every process to protect against these threats that show no signs of slowing down. Proper policies and procedures must be in place to navigate and respond to these attacks in real time. From an HR perspective, this involves awareness training on deepfakes, policy development, and implementing solution deployment services throughout to prevent an attack. With sophisticated tools, such as advanced audio and video content authentication and verification platforms that provide alerts if a threat of a deepfake is detected, we can also better detect and mitigate deepfakes, helping our teams understand exactly which aspects of a file are synthetic or manipulated. Its no longer enough to authenticate who is accessing a system from the outside. As we increasingly rely on images, audio, and video for critical decision-making, we now have a vested interest in verifying that every piece of digital content we consume is deemed trustworthy and accurate. If we dont, were putting everyonecolleagues, executives, and ourselvesat risk.
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Artificial intelligence: its not just for tech experts anymore. Instead, a heaping helping of free online resources has emerged. These classes are specifically designed to welcome beginners into the world of AI, even if they possess little or no prior technical background. I selected these Coursera courses for their beginner-friendly approach, high ratings, and comprehensive coverage of foundational concepts and key AI domains. AI For Everyone If youre taking your very first steps into AI, “AI For Everyone” on Coursera is a great starting point. The course requires no prior experience in AI or programming, making it truly accessible to everyone, and its got a reasonable completion time of around six hours. The curriculum is structured into four modules: What is AI?, Building AI Projects, Building AI in Your Company, and AI and Society. Google AI Essentials Another good starting point for your AI journey is the “Google AI Essentials” course. It offers a unique perspective on Googles AI philosophy and features hands-on activities and real-world scenarios. Similar to “AI For Everyone” mentioned above, “Google AI Essentials” is designed to be accessible to individuals of all skill levels. The six-hour course is structured into five modules: Introduction to AI, Maximize Productivity With AI Tools, Discover the Art of Prompting, Use AI Responsibly, and Stay Ahead of the AI Curve. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence For a slightly more structured and in-depth introduction to the foundational concepts of AI, the “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course offered by IBM on Coursera is an excellent option. This 12-hour course aims to equip beginners with a solid understanding of core AI concepts, and incorporates videos, readings, assignments, and even hands-on labs. The curriculum is divided into four modules that cover a range of essential topics: Introduction and Applications of AI; AI Concepts, Terminology, and Application Domains; Business and Career Transformation Through AI; and Issues, Concerns, and Ethical Considerations. Introduction to Generative AI Dont have 612 hours to get up to speed with the aforementioned courses? Skip right to the good stuff with the “Introduction to Generative AI” course, which offers an overview of . . . well, what most people are referring to when they mention AI nowadays (whether they realize it or not). The course defines generative AI, explains its underlying mechanisms, describes the different types of generative AI models, and discusses how the technology is used in the real world. It’s worth noting that this course is part of a larger “Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization,” so if you find the topic particularly engaging, youll be able to keep the good times rolling with additional courses.
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Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday. Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone. While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians. Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Bidens office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive. When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and completely root out the disease. However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Bidens case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones. Many political leaders sent Biden their wishes for his recovery. President Donald Trump, a longtime political opponent, posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery. Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, said on social media that she was keeping him in her family’s hearts and prayers during this time. Joe is a fighter and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership, Harris wrote. The health of Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term. Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus. But in recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president. In February 2023, Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion. In 2022, Biden made a cancer moonshot one of his administration’s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his older son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. His father, when announcing the goal to halve the cancer death rate, said this could be an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things. ___ By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press Associated Press writer Jon Fahey in New York contributed to this report.
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