Regula , a worldwide developer of forensic devices and identity verification solutions, has released its new survey which underlines the financial impact of deepfake fraud. As part of the survey ‘The Deepfake Trends 2024’, Regula highlighted the financial implications of deepfake fraud and how it affects businesses across industries and countries.

The company revealed that while the average loss for most organisations reached USD 450,000, the financial services sector faced scaled complexities, surpassing USD 603,000. The research comes shortly after Regula supported Maza to verify new immigrants securing US services. After facing several issues across its onboarding process, Regula chose to partner with Regula to launch a comprehensive IDV solution from a single vendor, including document and biometric verification.

Deepfake highly affects the financial industry Among the surveyed businesses, 92% experienced losses of up to USD 450,000, while 10% reported impairments exceeding USD 1 million, underlining how critical the issue is. Compared to Regula’s earlier research from 2022 which indicated the average financial burden of identity fraud was approximately USD 230,000, the current figure has almost doubled. This substantial increase in two years underscores the rapid evolution of the threat environment, as well as the necessity for organisations to further solidify their defences against deepfakes.

Moreover, Regula surveyed several industries, however, the financial sector was the most affected by video and audio deepfakes, with 23% of companies reporting over USD 1,000,000 in losses caused by AI-generated fraud. Meanwhile, the worldwide average is half as much. In addition, fintech encounters more losses than traditional banking, with the amount of these sectors reaching USD 637,000 and USD 570,000, respectively.

Besides analysing the impact of deepfake by industry, Regula focused on conducting its research by region. For example, Mexico had the highest average losses, reaching USD 627,000, followed by Singapore with USD 577,000, and the US with USD 438,000. On the other hand, Germany and the UAE reported a lower, however substantial, burden of USD 394,000 and USD 379,000, respectively.

Confidence vs competence Regula’s survey underlined a concerning gap between organisations’ confidence and competence, with 56% of businesses being sure of their abilities to detect deepfakes, while only 6% reported having avoided financial losses from these attacks. When commenting on the announcement, representatives from Regula mentioned that organisations, especially in the financial services sector, are not prepared for the complexity of these attacks. Considering the upward trend of these threats, companies need to switch to a liveness-centric approach, which focuses on managing physical objects only in real time.

This can decrease the probability of falling victim to a deepfake attack. .