A recent Zoom call between Senator Benjamin L. Cardin and an alleged Ukrainian official quickly led the former to realize he was speaking with a deepfake.

After receiving an email allegedly sent by Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's recently-departed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Cardin agreed to a video call with Kuleba. After some time on the Zoom call, however, Cardin realized that "Kuleba" was off not in appearance but in manners, asking pointed questions about the upcoming election and whether or not the U.S. would permission the Ukraine to use long-range missiles into Russia.

The incident was made generally known on Wednesday by Punchbowl News, with a New York Times article confirming the parties involved late Wednesday evening.

Reality Defender's
Response

Reality Defender is obviously not privy to any of the content from the Zoom call, and thus cannot examine the content through our deepfake detection platform. That said, it is also not the first time such a call was made between western officials and a deepfake masquerading as a Ukrainian official. In 2022, the mayors of Berlin, Madrid, and Vienna were on a video call with Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, only to discover Klitschko was in fact a deepfake.

According to a recent FMIC report, foreign actors from Russia, China, and Iran are increasingly using sophisticated AI techniques to interfere in the coming U.S. election, among other democratic processes. Reality Defender’s platform decidedly does not say who made a deepfake or the intent of the use/abuse of a deepfake.

That said, the pointed questions asked to Senator Cardin highlight the repeatedly publicized worries of Russia involving Ukraine’s increasing presence and warfare conducted on or within their country, and thus may allude to the deepfaker in question being related to affiliated/interested parties related to Russia — a sentiment shared by The Times.

This incident with Senator Cardin serves as a stark reminder of the evolving landscape of deepfakes and digital deception in politics. As AI technology continues to advance and as bad actors and state-sponsored attackers weaponize it for nefarious means, the line between reality and fabrication becomes increasingly blurred, posing significant challenges for political figures, diplomats, and the public at large. In addition to deepfake detection, education and awareness — like the kind displayed by Senator Cardin to disarm this deepfake — are key in the war on targeted disinformation and sophisticated social engineering attacks.