The Reality of Synthetic Voice Attacks

Voice biometrics provides a robust layer of security for contact centers, using the physical and behavioral characteristics of a voice to verify claimed identities. But just as businesses are adopting new voice biometric technology, fraudsters continue to advance and adapt techniques to take over customer accounts.

There has been concern expressed that voice biometrics is vulnerable to a certain level of sophisticated fraud. This concern rises with the evolving technology surrounding synthetic voices. A synthetic voice is a collaboration between a human being and a machine to produce an artificial version of human speech.

The truth remains: Fraudsters can indeed try to elude biometrics authentication using synthetic voices. And yet this truth doesn’t scare us, and here’s why:

1. Synthetic speech leaves evidence, a trail. It generates specific artifacts which makes this type of speech detectable.
2. Even in the best of cases, the synthetic voice doesn’t sound entirely human. With passive authentication, there is always an agent who acts as a spoofing detector. It’s very easy for humans to correctly distinguish synthetic speech from real human speech. As humans, we know when something sounds off.
3. The reality is fraudsters follow the path of least resistance; they want to work the fewest number of hours for the biggest amount of payoff. The creation of a synthetic voice requires a very high level of effort. The best deep fake or synthetic voice technology currently needs a substantial amount of audio data to train the voice. Getting this in normal circumstances is difficult, and yet not impossible. While there are tools that exist which generate synthetic speech, they require a certain level of skill/ expertise to utilize. These combined factors act as a natural deterrent.

Having made those points there is another truth which remains: All the detection, human intervention, and natural deterrents in the world do not necessarily equate to peace of mind. At LumenVox, we encourage the use of voice biometrics alongside traditional authentication methods, including PINs, passwords, security questions, so that customers are protected with multiple layers of security.

To learn more about the LumenVox Security Suite, visit our products page here.