Facial Recognition & Deepfakes, The New Cybersecurity Challenges: Jake Moore, ESET

It’s exploded in recent years. From real-time law enforcement surveillance to apps verifying if users are old enough to view specific content, it’s now deeply embedded in daily tech. But its reach—and risk—go far beyond convenience.

It’s a wake-up call. This isn’t just about unlocking your phone—it’s about how biometric data like facial features is being collected, stored, and potentially exposed. MSPs are often responsible for recommending or managing systems that involve these technologies.

If something goes wrong, they’re in the liability chain. Think GDPR, compliance risks, and misuse of biometric data: it’s something they need to get ahead of.

The most obvious one is storage. Facial data is highly sensitive. If it’s misused or breached, the consequences are massive.

But beyond that, MSPs need to recognize that facial recognition is just one part of a broader challenge: AI is evolving fast—deepfake audio, video, and image manipulation are now easy for criminals to deploy. And that opens up new fronts in phishing, impersonation, and fraud.

Exactly—every organization has data, but MSPs are the ones often holding the keys to multiple kingdoms. They’re managing infrastructures, securing environments, and advising clients.

If you’re providing support for a system that uses facial recognition—or any AI-based identity verification—you need to know how it can be attacked.

Absolutely. We’re seeing a crossover between cybercrime and traditional crime. Criminals are using deepfake videos and audio to impersonate CEOs or even family members.

One example I’ll demonstrate at MSP GLOBAL involves opening a bank account using only a faked face—and the online how-to guides were terrifyingly easy to access.

Multi-factor authentication is still key—but it’s no longer enough to trust biometric factors blindly. MSPs need to combine biometrics with device authentication, passcodes, tokens, and ongoing risk assessments.

That’s how you build resilience. And they need to understand that facial recognition is just one aspect of the complex challenge of data security and compliance.

This session brings the challenges MSPs are facing to life. I’ll show how I used an AI-generated face to bypass security measures—and what it means for businesses today.

It’s one thing to talk about encrypted containers; it’s another to watch a fake Tom Cruise unlock a system. It hits harder when you see it.

Because the threat is here, it’s growing, and it’s sophisticated. Come to my session at MSP GLOBAL to learn how criminals are hacking facial recognition, and what you can do right now to better protect your own data—and your clients’.