{"685623":{"#nid":"685623","#data":{"type":"news","title":"When a Video Isn\u2019t Real: Georgia Tech Alum Innovates Deepfake Detection for a New Era of Fraud","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn 2024, a finance worker in Hong Kong was duped into attending a meeting with four co-workers \u2013 or so he thought. What he didn\u2019t know was that all four were scammers, using deep-fake video to deceive him. In the end, he wired them $25 million.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe used to get about one deepfake a month at the beginning of 2023,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/vijayab\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVijay Balasubramaniyan\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (PhD CS 2011), CEO and co-founder of Pindrop Security. \u201cNow we\u2019re seeing seven deep-fake attacks per customer every day.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBalasubramaniyan founded his business in 2011, based on research he did as a Ph.D. student with his advisor, \u003Cstrong\u003EMustaque\u003C\/strong\u003E \u003Cstrong\u003EAhamad\u003C\/strong\u003E. Initially, the focus was on detecting deception in voice calls, with banks being the primary customers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThen two events happened\u2014first, the pandemic. Suddenly, doing business over the phone became more popular than in-person, and the demand for Pindrop\u2019s services grew in healthcare, retail, and beyond.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESecond, generative artificial intelligence. Seemingly overnight, almost anyone could use AI to imitate nearly anyone else.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat has been by far the biggest tailwind for Pindrop,\u201d Balasubramaniyan said. \u201cEverything requires strong identification and strong security.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe company built its first deepfake protection product eight years ago and has been building on it ever since.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPindrop recently raised $100 million from investors to expand its deepfake video detection business. The company\u2019s next product is a system for detecting deepfakes in live video conference meetings. It will allow businesses to avoid the scenario faced by the finance worker in Hong Kong, as well as others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAm I hiring the right candidate?\u201d Balasubramaniyan said. \u201cOr is this person I\u2019m interviewing not who they said they are? I was surprised, but that\u2019s our biggest use case.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDeepfake Detection\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHow does a machine tell the difference between a real person and a fake, even when a human can\u2019t?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHumans pattern-match a lot,\u201d Balasubramaniyan said. \u201cWe always look for familiarity in a noisy world. It\u2019s easy to fool a human.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPindrop\u2019s products don\u2019t look for similarities, though. They hunt for differences. A voice call, for example, provides 16,000 samples per second for the programs to analyze.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re able to pick up so many variances,\u201d Balasubramaniyan said, \u201cand there are so many places for these generative AI systems to make a mistake.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPindrop can not only identify fraudulent voice calls, but also which system was used to create them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve been surprised by how fast hackers have started using deepfakes in their operations,\u201d Balasubramaniyan said. He gave the example of a fraud that the companies follow, a man named Williams.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWilliams is a guy out of West Africa,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the longest time, he\u2019d employ 12 different people, and all day they would dial for dollars.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe started seeing Williams replace each of those 12 people with a large language model combined with a text-to-speech system. Now that AI has full-blown conversations with people, they can\u2019t tell the difference. And the bots don\u2019t sleep \u2013 they work 24 hours.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERoots at Tech\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBecause Balasubramaniyan\u2019s company grew out of his Ph.D. research, he has remained connected to the GT Computing community. He still regularly talks to faculty, especially Ahamad, who has a stake in Pindrop.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cVijay\u2019s Ph.D. research was of the highest quality, and the Pindrop paper was published in one of the top-tier security conferences,\u201d said Ahamad, professor and interim chair of the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHowever, because of his work experience before coming to Georgia Tech, he also focused on the real-world relevance of his research, which led to the launch of Pindrop Security. He is a great example of impactful research that students conduct in our laboratories.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBalasubramaniyan says he likes to hire fellow alumni.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cGeorgia Tech is a great school for our research teams to hire from,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe and his wife have also endowed a scholarship at Tech. Both are immigrants, and \u201cwe want to help other people who have big dreams and small pockets.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA lot of these folks, we talk to them, we tell them what we see in the market, we open our networks to them. We\u2019re very fortunate that Georgia Tech allows us to participate in such a meaningful way.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe thinks Tech is better at generating great talent than many other programs, precisely because it isn\u2019t in Silicon Valley.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBecause we sit here in the South and Atlanta, the ideas we come up with aren\u2019t the latest fad. They\u2019re rooted in great science or great tech. We\u2019re naturally great thinkers because we aren\u2019t fad-chasers.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGenerative AI is providing criminals with powerful new tools to defraud businesses and individuals. GT alumnus Vijay Balasubramaniyan and his company, Pindrop, are at the forefront of developing advanced technologies to combat fraudsters and other criminals.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Generative AI is accelerating the evolution of cybercrime, prompting companies to develop new tools for protecting their businesses."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2025-10-08 20:06:01","changed_gmt":"2025-10-09 16:19:14","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2025-10-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2025-10-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"678309":{"id":"678309","type":"image","title":"Vijay Balasubramaniyan (PhD CS 2011), CEO and co-founder of Pindrop Security","body":"\u003Cp\u003EGT alumnus \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/vijayab\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVijay Balasubramaniyan\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (PhD CS 2011) is CEO and co-founder of Pindrop Security.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1759954586","gmt_created":"2025-10-08 20:16:26","changed":"1759954586","gmt_changed":"2025-10-08 20:16:26","alt":"Vijay Balasubramaniyan (PhD CS 2011), CEO and co-founder of Pindrop Security","file":{"fid":"262319","name":"Unknown.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2025\/10\/08\/Unknown.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2025\/10\/08\/Unknown.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":30180,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2025\/10\/08\/Unknown.jpeg?itok=cyi8cijW"}}},"media_ids":["678309"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"}],"keywords":[{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"506","name":"alumni"},{"id":"596","name":"Alumni Association"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAnn Claycombe\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Director\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech College of Computing\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:claycombe@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eclaycombe@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}