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FBI Says People Are Using Deepfakes To Apply To Remote Jobs (gizmodo.com) 47

Posted by BeauHD from the fake-applicants dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The FBI wrote to its Internet Crime Complaint Center Tuesday that it has received multiple complaints of people using stolen information and deepfaked video and voice to apply to remote tech jobs. According to the FBI's announcement, more companies have been reporting people applying to jobs using video, images, or recordings that are manipulated to look and sound like somebody else. These fakers are also using personal identifiable information from other people -- stolen identities -- to apply to jobs at IT, programming, database, and software firms. The report noted that many of these open positions had access to sensitive customer or employee data, as well as financial and proprietary company info, implying the imposters could have a desire to steal sensitive information as well as a bent to cash a fraudulent paycheck.

What isn't clear is how many of these fake attempts at getting a job were successful versus how many were caught and reported. Or, in a more nefarious hypothetical, whether someone secured an offer, took a paycheck, and then got caught. These applicants were apparently using voice spoofing techniques during online interviews where lip movement did not match what's being said during video calls, according to the announcement. Apparently, the jig was up in some of these cases when the interviewee coughed or sneezed, which wasn't picked up by the video spoofing software. Companies who suspect a fake applicant can report it to the complaint center site.
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FBI Says People Are Using Deepfakes To Apply To Remote Jobs More

FBI Says People Are Using Deepfakes To Apply To Remote Jobs

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  • good looking people get jobs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:14PM (#62658210)
    I would certainly think about using a deepfake video to apply for a job. There's lots of discrimination against ugly, fat, and short people. If you get the job, and are performing effectively, but had a fake avatar, wouldn't that make it pretty clear there is discrimination if they seek to fire you over it?

    • I said the exact same thing to my ex!

      Bad culture fit.

    • Re:good looking people get jobs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Midnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:24PM (#62658234)
      I think you missed the part they're also using stolen identification, since they probably aren't authorized to work in the US/have a social security number etc, so there's a lot going on here. They'd have to get access to or open a bank account on using their mark's identity. This can then be scaled a bit by hiring someone who is good at interviewing to help answer questions for these positions, e.g. hire some old salty IT nerd like us on slashdot.

      So while doing this to gain insight and possibly protect against discrimination is a noble cause, the way it's being done by these actors is certainly a nefarious cause.

      • Still not necessarily nefarious. If you were in reality a older woman, from a minority group, with a clearly ethnic name, then masquerading as a younger white male could give you considerably better odds of landing the job. If you used your own SSN you'd be giving the game away right off the bat. I'm pretty sure that when your SSN is checked for employment it isn't just a is this number legit, it'll be matched against a name at the least and quite likely gender and date of birth.

    • Nah, I'm ugly as heck and there's always a bidding war for me. Your looks aren't the problem.

      Unless of course you're applying for a job as a stripper. :)

      • Change your pronoun to "they" or pick the right minority and there are workplaces right now that would hire you in an instant , even with only middling technology credentials, to demonstrate their "diversity". Being a married man and a sole breadwinner has lost its appeal in many politically conscious technology companies. and being an older white engineer means you might tolerate a lot less of certain kinds abuse from middle managers.

    • As might I, if I were looking. Snippng 20 years off my appearance would still allow pl;enty of career experience with contemporary technology.

    • I heard of a university department where the professors they hired over the pandemic were noticeably shorter than the ones hired beforehand. The difference? Interviews were done over Zoom, making it harder to see how tall the candidate was.

      We really do discriminate over the dumbest things. You'd think an academic department would understand that your height doesn't affect how good your research is, but apparently not.

  • The virtual road to success (Score:4, Interesting)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:22PM (#62658230) Journal

    The successful ones haven't been reported yet.

  • if only (Score:5, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:28PM (#62658240) Journal

    ...We had a process for reviewing and then actually interviewing people in person?

    The moral of the story is that if you have an impersonal,, automated hiring process that treats people like commodities, maybe you deserve to get tricked/burned a few times.

    • Do the victims of this identity theft deserve the IRS chasing them for taxes?

      • Note to self, When using deepfakes of others to get remote work *always* make sure its a contract position where I get a 1099 because screw everyone.

      • I suspect most of them aren't even US citizens. Some background information in the story mentions North Korea being one of the culprits in the use of deep fakes in similar scenarios. So pick your favorite rogue state Internet power:

        The FBI was among several federal agencies to recently warn companies of individuals working for the North Korean government applying to remote positions in IT or other tech jobs in May. In those cases, fake workers often bid on remote contract work through sites like Upwork or F

    • ...We had a process for reviewing and then actually interviewing people in person?

      What's why people who like remote work should be bothered by this - the more it is associated with fraud, the less available remote work will be, and the lower it will pay.

    • Many modern workforces deliberate segregate the actual staff in a department from the hiring process, "to avoid bias" but in reality to preserve the role of HR bureaucracy. It makes fraud easier, especially when hiring inexpensive off-shore consultants.

    • And yet no one cares because everyone seems to have adopted quite the impersonal process. Get burned? Oh well. Dismissed as the cost of hiring meatsacks.

      And if it becomes too burdensome, they'll consider automation to remove the meatsack requirement before ever admitting an impersonal process, was a mistake.

  • some staffing agencies have been doing this for years.
    Or they have one guy who does this for there full over seas team.

  • Real Live Person (Score:3)

    by martinX ( 672498 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:30PM (#62658244)

    these open positions had access to sensitive customer or employee data, as well as financial and proprietary company info

    How about a position that has access to sensitive customer or employee data, as well as financial and proprietary company info be interviewed for in person. Even if it's a case of just having the successful applicant show up in person to establish identity and credentials. Maybe HR just likes WFH too much these days.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      What positions do you think can do remote work without having access to sensitive employer or customer data? Certainly not developers, document herders, anyone doing non-trivial customer support. Almost all positions would require an in-person appearance.

      • Nope!
        Obviously, you've been under a rock for the past two years.

      • I work as a security consultant and pentester in a very security-conscious, financial group. Even here there are few areas that you can't access via VPN tunnel.

        Yes, you have to physically appear in front of HR and security at least once to establish identity, and to pick up the more sensitive equipment in person, but access to nearly all information is possible remotely. Has to be, pretty much, considering how decentralized the whole deal is, and the requirements of PCI-DSS pretty much make anything else im

  • .. to be honest, deepfaking or photoshopping your appearance for an interview isn't a bad idea at all. It's a good way to avoid discrimination. I don't think companies can fire you for looking different than when they hired you, can they?

    • Not a lawyer, but I am sure there was a clause in their employment contract that makes exclusions for providing any untruthful or misleading information for purposes of gaining employment. It would cover everything even slightly variances in information.
    • Photo identification is required for jobs in America.

    • I don't think companies can fire you for looking different than when they hired you, can they?

      Given that women wearing heavy makeup represents the OG deepfake, I kind of doubt it.

    • Change the color, maybe alter the voice, very simple stuff so people don't use phy$ical attributes (slam..click) to discriminate against you.

    • I think that would depend on the job you apply for. If it's a job where you have physical contact with customers and you aren't what could be considered "presentable", it may well be reason for termination.

      I mean, take a look at this [youtube.com] and ponder for a moment how much you'd trust a bank that hires them as tellers.

  • In order to get equal pay, a woman might pretend to be a man. Lets see how the reveal afterwards goes over.

    • Re:How about that... sports team, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:38PM (#62658270) Homepage Journal

      I know someone who does that when remote contract coding jobs. Says it's just so much easier to pretend to be male. Aside from the discrimination, she was getting "job interviews" that were suspiciously like first dates.

    • It doesn't actually work that way. The pay gap is almost entirely due to men working longer hours for their entire work-life. The infamous 22% wage gap is for lifetime earnings, not hourly earnings, and very many men work many, many more hours weekly than many, many women.

    • That is actually a really interesting experiment to do. if the deepfake is good enough, its a way to change the gender of the applicant and nothing else. Have the subjects apply for multiple jobs, each time with a randomly selected gender.

      I know a lot of people think they know the results, but this sounds like a way to actually know.

  • Intro Video (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:38PM (#62658268)

    "How do you do, fellow programmers of software writing!"

  • This sounds weird to me. My first job at a defense contractor, I wasn't given access to the classified material for many weeks until my security clearance went through. What idiot gave these job applicants access to sensitive information on day one?

  • Well, if you don't want to interview people in person, and use some so-called AI to screen applicants, you reap what you sow.

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