When Trust Becomes The Vulnerability: Deepfakes Are Forcing A Rethink Of Defense

InnovationWhen Trust Becomes The Vulnerability: Deepfakes Are Forcing A Rethink Of DefenseBySteve Piper,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 26, 2026, 06:30am EDTSteve Piper, CISSP, is the founder and CEO of CyberEdge Group and Editor-in-Chief of Security Buzz. getty​Deepfakes are accelerating the breakdown of trust in phone and video calls, two of the most relied‑upon channels in corporate workflows. Attackers combine speed and scale to exploit these communication channels faster than organizations can verify trust. With U.S. fraud losses facilitated by generative AI projected to grow from $12.3 billion in 2023 to $40 billion by 2027 (32% CAGR), according to Deloitte Insights, this is no longer a niche security issue, but a material business and financial risk that demands rethinking defense when deception is inexpensive, scalable and continuous.Why Detection Alone No Longer HoldsOrganizations are exploring fraud detection technologies, including behavioral pattern analysis; device and contextual intelligence; and multilayered verification strategies that scrutinize content through visual, auditory and textual lenses. Many, however, are hampered by their own internal infrastructure. Traditional identity verification and security controls were designed for static signals, not adaptive deception. Nowhere is this breakdown more visible than in financial services. According to the ACAMS "2026 Global AFC Threats" report, more than half of organizations cite outdated data and legacy IT systems as a high or very high risk to anti‑financial crime programs.While deepfake detection tools are a marked improvement over legacy security systems, they are not adversary‑proof defenses. Models trained on clean data perform poorly against live, compressed, multichannel attacks. CSIRO-led research finds that detec...