One In Every 100 Identity Check Failures Involves A Deepfake Document, Image Or Liveness Video – LexisNexis Risk Solutions

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions warns that the latest wave of AI-generated deepfake documents, images and liveness videos could leave organizations significantly exposed if their identity and customer onboarding checks fail to keep pace.

The global fraud prevention specialist says it has seen a 180% year-on-year increase in attacks and warns that the quality and sophistication of deepfake documents and images improves daily. With Juniper Research predicting 100 billion identity-related checks will be carried out this year and one in every 100 failed checks will contain a deepfake, experts at LexisNexis Risk Solutions warn businesses everywhere to expect rising volumes of daily attacks targeting their digital services.

“Deepfakes vastly complicate digital identity verification. Protecting against this surge of attacks requires a solid line of defense incorporating end-to-end capture, fraud analysis and liveness checks.” says Kimberly Sutherland, global head of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Even the smallest gap in your defenses is like an open window that a fraudster can climb through.”

Bad actors use deepfakes to bypass identity checks and create new accounts or take control of existing user accounts to make unauthorized payments, withdrawals and online purchases, launder the proceeds of crime, or abuse new customer bonus incentives. One in every 11 new account creations in 2025 was a fraud attack and almost a fifth of all reported fraud involved unauthorized access of customer accounts, according to the company’s latest Cybercrime Report.

As deepfakes become more realistic, identity checks need to be capable of spotting nuanced flaws in document security features and closely examine facial expression and skin tone.

Sutherland continued, “Highly realistic deepfakes call for forensic examination of hundreds of security features: document structure, image integrity, holograms, etching and microtext. Deepfakes typically fail on several minor flaws, as opposed to physical forgeries that fail on one major issue, but they are not easy to spot with the human eye during manual checks. The same goes for deepfake images and videos. Checks need to assess micro movements in facial muscles, analyse light reflection and detect image manipulation and injection tactics.”

Analysis shows that fraudsters favor high-value, reusable identity documents, including passports, driver’s licenses and national ID cards, with the most highly sought after documents issued by the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Shane O’Sullivan, research analyst at Juniper Research, added, “As digital identity verification evolves, the core requirements shift toward the technical ability to integrate multiple trust signals into a coherent system architecture. Effective solutions depend on the coordination of document authentication, biometric liveness detection and real-time risk analysis within a single workflow. Increasingly, fraud detection system success is defined by how well it can detect advanced threats such as synthetic identities and deepfakes while maintaining interoperability across standards and minimising latency and user friction.”

Sutherland concluded, “The risk to businesses is real from both a financial and reputational standpoint. The reality is that AI-generated attacks are practically doubling year over year and getting more sophisticated with every attack.”

Learn more about unmasking deepfakes and forged documents with the power of AI.