Weaponizing Public Information: A Review of OSINT-Enabled Deepfake Types and Case Studies

The term “Deepfake” combines “Deep Learning” and “Fake” which refers to any manipulated or altered content. Deepfakes are AI-generated fake videos, images, or audio recordings that look and sound incredibly realistic. With more personal information available online on social media, news websites, and other public platforms, the ease of creating deepfakes has become incredibly easy. Malicious actors leverage Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques to gather publicly available information, to obtain the necessary photos, videos, and voice recordings to create sophisticated deepfakes and use them for fraud, disinformation, and identity theft.This paper examines five concrete types of deepfakes that take advantage of OSINT. These are face-swapped videos in news media, impersonation videos for business executives, fake testimonies for use in courtrooms, contextual fabrications for the manipulation of political issues, and voice cloning for phone scams. Through analysis of documented real-world cases, this study demonstrates how easily accessible public information has been weaponized by cybercriminals, creating unprecedented threats that undermine trust and security in our digital world.