Experts at Kaspersky Lab discovered darknet ads offering real-time video and audio deepfake creation. The price of such services depends on the complexity and duration of the fake content, starting at $50 for video and $30 for voice deepfakes.
Previously, researchers had already found offers on the dark web to create deepfakes. However, attackers are now offering real-time generation of fake voice and visual content, and the cost of such services has dropped: as recently as 2023, the price for creating one minute of deepfake video reached $20,000.
In the newly found ads, various options are offered: real-time face replacement during conversations on a videoconferencing platform or in a messaging app; face swapping to pass verification; spoofing the camera feed on a phone or a virtual device.
Vendors of such services are also ready to provide software that allows synchronizing a person’s lip movements in a video with any text, even in foreign languages, as well as tools for voice cloning and for changing pitch and timbre to match the desired emotion. At the same time, experts do not rule out that a significant portion of the posted ads are scams aimed at extracting money from interested buyers.
“On underground marketplaces we see not only ads offering ‘deepfake-as-a-service,’ but also clear demand for such services. Threat actors are actively exploring and already using AI services in their operations. At the same time, we’re seeing more sophisticated tools on the darknet: malicious large language models built from scratch, without relying on well-known LLMs, and running locally. While these technologies don’t create fundamentally new cyberthreats, they can significantly expand attackers’ capabilities. In this environment, cybersecurity experts need to make serious efforts to counter adversaries. Paradoxically, one possible direction for development is to also use AI solutions to boost the productivity of security practitioners and the effectiveness of defensive tools,” comments Igor Kuznetsov, Director of Kaspersky GReAT.