Deepfakes, cyber attacks seen to rise as 2025 elections approaches

MANILA, Philippines — The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) warns that deepfakes and cyberattacks will become more rampant as the mid-term elections in May this year nears.

The CICC discussed this threat at the conference titled “Forging Collaborative Cyber Resilience: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Democratic Institutions.”

READ: Tulfo urges CICC to prepare for a rise in deepfakes

This event occurred on March 11 and 12 at the Manila Polo Club’s turf room in Makati City.

In the forum, the CICC reported detecting 200 to 300 deepfakes daily.

“Elections are just a few weeks away, and I think that’s the thing that we have to address right now,” CICC Executive Director Alexander K. Ramos said.

“We are facing a challenge on artificial intelligence and deepfakes creating havoc,” he told the attendees.

The CICC adopts a whole-of-society approach to suppress the proliferation of deepfakes.

Consequently, it is working with stakeholders to establish a nationwide task force.

It will have various representatives from government agencies, technology companies, media organizations, educational institutions and civil society.

“We are now working on some guidelines on the reporting mechanism for this. But the tools we have acquired are for distribution,” Ramos said. 

The CICC has recently procured new software to detect deepfakes in 30 seconds with 95% accuracy.