- Factor One: “Hacks” (of all kind) are now commonplace. Thanks to news coverage at unprecedented levels, everybody knows about them. That means heightened end-customer awareness and sensitivity to vulnerabilities, as well as reputational damages.
Latest case in point: last month’s (December 2019) viral account of a malevolent individual talking to an 8-year-old girl through the family’s Ring Nursery Camera
- Factor Two: Fakes and “DeepFakes” are stealing the spotlight with their star power. New software comes to market every other month; some claiming to need only 3 minutes of recordings to train a voice synthesizer to sound like you. This gives brands incentive to employ anti-fraud solutions that detect synthesized voices in real time.
Related Fact: 14,698 deepfake videos were identified on the internet in June and July (2019), up from 7,964 last December — an 84% increase within only seven months. Clearly, we have the roots of a fraud problem.
- Factor Three: “Vishing” (the voice equivalent of “phishing") incidents are accelerating. Chalk it up to the siren song of speech technology combined with AI. Such a strong combo creates an irresistible challenge for imposters and fraudsters. Voice is their new chosen weapon.
Reality check: Training is a big factor in this instance because enterprise employees are well-trained on spotting potential phishing emails, they are not ready to do so for voice, especially because synthesized voices sound so convincing.
More Hacks, Fakes and Fraud What the New Decade Will Bring to Contact Centers
by Dan Miller
February 10, 2020
As we enter a new year and launch a new decade, three trends help shape demand for, and end customer attitudes toward, voice-based authentication and fraud prevention: