Peerwise
Know Who You're Talking To
Peerwise puts the power of human connection to work
creating a web of trust that protects you from deepfake phishing.
Identity verified. Peace restored.
Peerwise puts the power of human connection to work
creating a web of trust that protects you from deepfake phishing.
Identity verified. Peace restored.
Who do you trust?
Our world has entered an era where there is no certainty of what is real.
The lines separating fact from fiction are blurred, and in this new distorted
reality we face a more general collapse in human trust. We no longer know who
or what to believe. You may be asking yourself, 'who can I trust?'
In the midst of these troubling trends, social engineering attacks are on the
rise. Often perpetrated through impersonation and phishing, these attacks have
proven to be a highly effective tactic for criminal enterprise.
The dawn of Deepfakes.
A new and highly sophisticated form of artificial intelligence threatens to add
an entirely new dimension of duplicity to social engineering attacks.
Deepfakes combine existing image, video and audio data to produce fabricated content
that looks and sounds authentic.
You have probably already read in the media about deepfake videos impersonating
politicians. Another less widely discussed format is deepfake audio, where a person's
voice can be exactly simulated. Using speech synthesis, a voice model is constructed
that is capable of reading out text with the same intonation, cadence, and manner as
the legitimate person.
Corporate phishing today.
Phishing is one of the most effective means to defraud people online. Today's corporate
phishing attacks use fairly rudimentary techniques of social engineering, usually performed
through email impersonation of senior executives or trusted suppliers. Attackers often seek
damaging information or authorization of payment to false accounts.
An FBI report found that these types of attacks have cost organizations worldwide more
than $10 billion in the last year alone. “The scam is frequently carried out
when a subject compromises legitimate business or personal email accounts through social
engineering or computer intrusion to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds,” according
to the FBI alert.
Deepfake phishing of the future.
Today's companies have sought to become highly visible on social media. CEOs are regularly
encouraged to speak about brand strategies on video platforms, and CTOs can be found on stage
at TEDx discussing technology. With these corporate efforts, is there risk that business
leaders will be providing source material for enabling deepfake attacks?
In a sign that Deepfake phishing has arrived, reporting from 2019 has indicated that
criminals have been successful in impersonating the CEO of a German energy firm, tricking
this individual into wiring immediate funds to a fraudulent supplier. It is highly likely
that there will be an increase in enhanced spearphishing attacks driven by Deepfakes.
What is Peerwise?
Peerwise is a phone app that establishes trust between you and the people who you communicate
with. Using Peerwise, when you communicate remotely with a trusted person, you can do a real-time
identity verification — ensuring that you know exactly who it is you are talking to.
Put another way, Peerwise lets two people perform direct user-to-user identity verification.
Verification is performed instantly, and doesn't rely on any particular method of communication.
Verification is accomplished without any external, central, or third-party authority.
How Peerwise works.
Peerwise puts an emphasis on simplicity. Trust and identity verification works by displaying
a Trust Score for the person who you are talking to. This Trust Score is a cryptographic
calculation that represents how you know this person. For a perfect Trust Score of 100, you
must meet in person once, and tap phones with that collegue. The authenticity of any future
virtual interactions, on any communication channel, is now mathematically guaranteed.
Peerwise is also able to calculate trust between two people who have never met. By analyzing
the network of people who you have in common with another person, and the Trust Score shared
between these individuals, a Trust Score of 0 — 99 can be established.
Proudly founded in 2019, in our great city of Chicago, we are a team of software engineers and security professionals most recently working together to create the technology behind Cleversafe.
If you would like more information about our company or product, please get in touch.
