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"Hello, It's Me": Deep Learning-based Speech Synthesis Attacks in the Real World

Cryptography and Security 2021-09-21 v1 Artificial Intelligence Sound Audio and Speech Processing

Abstract

Advances in deep learning have introduced a new wave of voice synthesis tools, capable of producing audio that sounds as if spoken by a target speaker. If successful, such tools in the wrong hands will enable a range of powerful attacks against both humans and software systems (aka machines). This paper documents efforts and findings from a comprehensive experimental study on the impact of deep-learning based speech synthesis attacks on both human listeners and machines such as speaker recognition and voice-signin systems. We find that both humans and machines can be reliably fooled by synthetic speech and that existing defenses against synthesized speech fall short. These findings highlight the need to raise awareness and develop new protections against synthetic speech for both humans and machines.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.09598,
  title  = {"Hello, It's Me": Deep Learning-based Speech Synthesis Attacks in the Real World},
  author = {Emily Wenger and Max Bronckers and Christian Cianfarani and Jenna Cryan and Angela Sha and Haitao Zheng and Ben Y. Zhao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.09598},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

13 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-24T06:08:42.231Z