Trend Micro Predicts Rise of Deepfake-Powered Malicious Digital Twins

January 2025 – Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, has unveiled its 2025 predictions report, titled, The Easy Way In/Out: Securing The Artificial Future. The report highlights a surge in AI-powered attacks and the emergence of hyper-personalized, deepfake-driven threats.

As cybercrime is projected to cost over $10 trillion in 2025, consumer data is expected to be a prime target, fueling the underground economy. Criminals are anticipated to continue evolving their tactics to exploit vulnerabilities, with AI accelerating these efforts to enhance, speed up, and improve malicious operations, particularly through social engineering schemes that prey on user vulnerabilities.

Trend Micro predicts the emergence of malicious “digital twins,” leveraging leaked personal information to create AI models mimicking individuals’ behaviors. When paired with deepfake video/audio and compromised biometric data, these twins could drive advanced social engineering scams, such as business email compromise (BEC), fake employee schemes, and large-scale misinformation campaigns.

The 2025 Trend Micro Security Predictions report underscores Trend Micro’s strong commitment to cybersecurity. This dedication is further evidenced in the Trend Micro Mid-Year Cybersecurity Report for H1 2024, which details how the company’s sophisticated solutions successfully detected and blocked over 188.92 million threats in the MENA region.

“Comprehending cybersecurity trends in an AI-driven world is essential for organizations to anticipate and counter evolving threats”, said Bilal Baig, Chief Technical Officer, MMEA, Trend Micro. “With the release of our Security Predictions Report for 2024, we aim to provide a forward-looking guide that equips enterprises to navigate these transformative times with confidence and resilience.”

“At Trend Micro, our commitment extends beyond foresight. By bridging insights from the past with a keen eye on the future, we continue to empower businesses and individuals with the knowledge, strategies, and tools needed to thrive in a complex cybersecurity landscape. In Saudi Arabia alone, we blocked over 11 million email threats and thwarted 21 million malware attacks in H1 2024, exemplifying our proactive approach to securing the region’s digital landscape.”

The 2025 Security Predictions Report also highlights critical areas of concern, including vulnerabilities like memory corruption bugs, API exploits, and legacy issues such as cross-site scripting and SQL injections, as well as the cascading risks from vulnerabilities in widely adopted systems like connected vehicle ECUs. In ransomware, threat actors are expected to outpace endpoint detection and response (EDR) advancements by exploiting under-protected environments such as cloud systems, IoT, and edge devices, while using techniques like disabling security tools, and disguising harmful codes. These developments signal the rise of faster, stealthier, and more sophisticated attack chains, underscoring the need for robust, proactive security strategies.