Why deepfake preparedness belongs in your crisis playbook.
- A video appears online showing a public figure saying something they never said. Within minutes, it spreads and triggers public reaction.
- The CEO’s voice comes through the phone. It sounds urgent. “Authorize the transfer now.” Later, the company learns the call was fake.
- An employee receives a voicemail from a senior executive asking them to bypass normal checks. The message sounds real. It is not.
Deepfakes are no longer a novelty. They’re a fast-moving communications and fraud risk that can trigger a crisis in minutes and cause financial loss, internal confusion, and reputational harm.
Most organizations invest heavily in preparing for cyberattacks, fraud, and other digital threats. Deepfakes do not replace those risks. They amplify them. For that reason, deepfake preparedness belongs squarely in the crisis playbook. Sitting at the intersection of cybersecurity, fraud controls, and reputation management, deepfakes demand a response that is cross-functional by design.
Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create highly realistic audio and video that convincingly imitate real people. They exploit the same trust, urgency, and authority cues cybercriminals have relied on for years. What has changed is their speed and accessibility. The technology is now inexpensive, quick to produce, and capable of spreading faster than most organizations can respond.
While synthetic media has legitimate uses, deepfakes are increasingly deployed for fraud, misinformation, and social engineering. Executive impersonation and fabricated videos are becoming more common and more difficult to distinguish from authentic communications.
For leadership teams, the central question is not whether deepfakes will appear, but whether the organization is prepared when they do. The appropriate response is readiness rather than alarm, an approach that organizations already apply to other cyber and crisis threats.
At NATIONAL, we view deepfakes as a speed-of-trust crisis: the faster misinformation spreads, the more disciplined the response must be. Because deepfakes cannot be prevented, the goal is not elimination, but impact reduction—through preparation, verification, and clear decision-making pathways.
Why deepfake preparedness fits existing playbooks
Most organizations already maintain cyber incident and crisis response plans that govern detection, escalation, communication, and recovery. Deepfake incidents fit naturally within this framework.
Like phishing and other cyber-enabled threats, deepfakes exploit human trust and gaps in organizational response. The same governance structures, escalation paths, and cross-functional coordination used for cyber incidents also apply to synthetic media events.
Effective response depends on advance alignment among communications, legal, cybersecurity, risk, and executive teams. It also requires early verification before public action is taken and clear thresholds for when to go public (and when not to).
Clarity around communication channels is especially important in a deepfake incident. Organizations should be clear about which official channels are authoritative and should be treated as the primary source of truth. Prioritizing those channels helps employees, customers, and the public distinguish legitimate communications from fabricated content and reduces the risk that false material fills the information gap.
Deepfake preparedness does not require a standalone program. It is an extension of capabilities many organizations already have in place.
Practical steps for readiness
Name it in your risk framework.
Organizations should explicitly recognize deepfakes within their cyber risk framework, alongside fraud and deception-based attacks. This includes defined escalation paths, internal roles, and approved holding statements.Verify before acting.
Verification must come before response. A clear process should be in place to confirm the authenticity of audio, video, or executive communications before action is taken.Centralize communications.
Communication must be disciplined. Organizations should designate a single authoritative source, prioritize official channels, limit statements to verified facts, and avoid repeating or describing false content in detail, which can unintentionally amplify it.Train employees to report quickly.
Employee awareness matters. Practical guidance on recognizing and reporting suspected deepfakes reduces the likelihood that false content spreads internally before verification.Rehearse via tabletop exercises.
Deepfake scenarios should be included in cyber and crisis tabletop exercises. This helps clarify decision authority and build leadership confidence.
The bottom line
Deepfakes represent a new method for an old challenge: the erosion of digital trust.
By integrating deepfake preparedness into existing cyber and crisis playbooks through governance, verification, training, and communication discipline, organizations can respond with intention rather than urgency.
That preparation reduces confusion at the moment of impact, enables sound executive decision-making, and helps protect both reputation and operational stability when trust matters most.
Our crisis team supports organizations navigating cyber-driven reputation events where verification and speed are in constant tension. To pressure-test readiness, NATIONAL can facilitate a 90-minute Deepfake Readiness tabletop, audit your “source-of-truth” channels and employee guidance, or integrate a dedicated deepfake response protocol into your crisis playbook.
