Security News > 2024 > January > FTC offers $25,000 prize for detecting AI-enabled voice cloning
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has started accepting submissions for its Voice Cloning Challenge, a public competition with a $25,000 top prize for ideas that protect consumers from the danger of AI-enabled voice cloning for fraudulent activity.
AI can be used to clone someone's voice by analyzing an audio clip of the target speaking to extract unique vocal characteristics and then using the training data to generate new speech.
Although voice cloning has legitimate uses, such as personalized text-to-speech services and assistive tools for people with disabilities, threat actors can also use it for fraudulent activities like voice phishing, social engineering, and other types of voice-based scams.
By impersonating the voice of someone familiar to the target, like a family member or a celebrity, malicious actors can easily trick people into believing the claims made in a call or voice message.
" poses a significant risk: families and small businesses can be targeted with fraudulent extortion scams; creative professionals, such as voice artists, can have their voices appropriated in ways that threaten their livelihoods and deceive the public.
Through the Voice Cloning Challenge, the FTC aims to find a solution that can identify cases of voice cloning with the help of generative AI. The agency calls it "An exploratory challenge" that could potentially provide a direction for the risk mitigation effort.