Connected Magazine

Eamonn Carey: Deepfakes are becoming very real, I even got caught out by one

‘Trust less, verify more’ is the mantra for today as differentiating real from fake becomes ever more difficult

Three of the most important words in the English language over the coming months and years will be “trust, but verify”. Illustration: Jinhwa Jang for Bloomberg

Not so long ago I received a series of friendly messages purportedly from a colleague with a new number on WhatsApp.They referenced events, office locations, people’s names and more and then said they wanted some help accessing some documents. They were in the middle of an M&A deal and wanted to keep everything quiet. It was all very believable stuff.

Except “they” weren’t who they said they were. The office location they mentioned was an ...