Deepfakes, videos of people doing or saying things they have never done or said, have become a powerful weapon in the hands of sophisticated cybercriminals who use technology to blackmail or simply seek revenge against politicians, entertainers, athletes, celebrities and the unsuspecting. to strangers

They are made to distort public dialogue, manipulate public opinion and electoral processes, spread political propaganda, and are used for fraud and extortion. Very often they are also created to attract certain people, with forced porn content, writes the Greek publication Kathimerini

Kaspersky’s research confirmed the huge demand for deepfakes on the dark web and the astronomical prices for which they are sold by the cybercriminals who create them. A one-minute revenge video or deep fake simulating cryptocurrency flows for use in crypto scams costs between $300 and $20,000.

The research shows that there is a high demand for deepfakes that exceeds the available supply. The cost of creating deepfakes varies depending on the complexity of the project and the quality of the final product. Those who ask for deepfakes of celebrities or political figures pay the most.

A significant number of high-quality deepfakes belong to popular crypto scams (Cryptostreams or Fake Crypto Giveaways), where scammers collect cryptocurrency by broadcasting fake giveaways. To create these deepfakes, they use images of celebrities or combine old videos to launch live streams on social media platforms. They promise to double any cryptocurrency payment sent to them, demanding that you send them between 2,500 and 1,000,000 XRP with the promise of double the amount back. Users involved in this scam can lose between $1,000 and $460,000.