ProKYC: Deepfake Tool for Account Fraud Attacks

Use case sources

Source reports and analysis supporting this case are listed below. AITBM interpretation and any indicative scoring are derived from this public evidence.

Incident overview

Cato CTRL security researchers have identified ProKYC, a deepfake tool being sold to cybercriminals as a method to bypass Know Your Customer (KYC) verification on financial service applications such as cryptocurrency exchanges. ProKYC can create fake identity documents and generate deepfake selfie videos, two key pieces of biometric data used during KYC verification. The tool helps cybercriminals defeat facial recognition and liveness checks to create fraudulent accounts.

The procedure below describes how a bad actor could use ProKYC's service to bypass KYC verification.

Why this record has no ERS

MITRE ATLAS AML.CS0034 analyses ProKYC, an attacker-sold deepfake tool, and presents its procedure as how a bad actor could bypass KYC verification at unnamed financial services. The analysed artefact is attacker tooling, which never qualifies as the assessed system, and no observed control outcome at an identified KYC deployment or stated configuration is recorded, so the record fails the system and observation tests of the scorability admission test. The same mechanism and configuration class is scored from observed evidence in deepfake-injection-kyc.

Status: Not scorable by design · Classification: Incident · source date 2026-08-06 · primary evidence date 2024-10-09

SecureFlow attack flow

This record mirrors an AIDEFEND SecureFlow flow (MITRE ATLAS case-study conversion): an ordered attack path with MITRE ATLAS tactic and technique labels and the AIDEFEND controls matched to each step. The flow documents what happened and which controls apply; it does not establish an assessed deployment.

MITRE ATLAS case study	AML.CS0034 (incident)
Target	KYC verification services
Actor	ProKYC, cybercriminal group
Reporter	Cato CTRL
Primary evidence date	2024-10-09
SecureFlow record updated	2026-08-06
AI layers	Predictive ML / computer vision
Risk impact	Financial fraud abuse, Credential and identity theft
Affected components	KYC verification service, facial recognition and liveness checks, ProKYC deepfake generation tool, fake identity documents, deepfake selfie video injection, cryptocurrency exchange onboarding

Attack steps

#	Step	ATLAS tactic / technique
1	Collect Identity InformationThe bad actor collected user identity information.	AML.TA0002 AML.T0087
2	Acquire ProKYC Deepfake ToolThe bad actor paid for the ProKYC tool, created a fake identity document, generated a deepfake selfie video, and replaced a live camera feed with the deepfake video.	AML.TA0003 AML.T0016.002
3	Generate Deepfake Identity DocumentThe bad actor used a mixture of real PII and falsified details with the ProKYC tool to generate a deepfaked identity document.	AML.TA0001 AML.T0088
4	Generate Deepfake Selfie VideoThe bad actor used ProKYC tool to generate a deepfake selfie video with the same face as the identity document designed to bypass liveness checks.	AML.TA0001 AML.T0088
5	Register Exchange AccountThe bad actor used the victim information to register an account with a financial services application, such as a cryptocurrency exchange.	AML.TA0003 AML.T0021
6	Trigger KYC Facial VerificationDuring identity verification, the financial services application used facial recognition and liveness detection to analyze live video from the user's camera.	AML.TA0000 AML.T0047
7	Inject Deepfake into Camera FeedThe bad actor used ProKYC to replace the camera feed with the deepfake selfie video. This successfully evaded the KYC verification and allowed the bad actor to authenticate themselves under the false identity.	AML.TA0004 AML.T0015
8	Impersonate Synthetic IdentityWith an authenticated account under the victim's identity, the bad actor successfully impersonated the victim and evaded detection.	AML.TA0007 AML.T0073
9	Cause Financial HarmThe bad actor used this access to cause financial harm to the victim.	AML.TA0011 AML.T0048.000

Threat references

AML.CS0034: ProKYC: Deepfake Tool for Account Fraud Attacks AML.T0015 AML.T0088 AML.T0073

Summary and attack steps reproduced from AIDEFEND SecureFlow (https://aidefendlabs.com/en/secureflow/?flow=atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud; AIDEFEND content CC BY 4.0), converted from MITRE ATLAS case study AML.CS0034 (Apache License 2.0; MITRE ATLAS is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation).

AIDEFEND evidence routes

AIDEFEND defences → AITBM sub-metrics

Identifiers are quoted as they appear on the AIDEFEND in Action brief or in the AIDEFEND SecureFlow defense map (audited AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15); the sub-metric mapping is AITBM's own, from the specification's AIDEFEND tables reconciled at catalogue data version 2026.10.15. AIDEFEND renumbers identifiers between releases, so the data version travels with every mapping and neither side's IDs should be cited without one. A mapping identifies a possible evidence route; a recommendation does not prove that the control was implemented or effective and receives no scoring credit by itself.

Technique	Defence	Priority	Evidences
AID-H-002.007	External Media & Document Provenance VerificationExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack steps step-6, step-7. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Ro-1 Ro-5 Fa-1 Fa-3 Cn-8
AID-D-001.002	Synthetic Media & Deepfake ForensicsExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack steps step-6, step-7. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Ro-1
AID-D-007.002	Realtime Multimodal Stream & Session Anomaly DetectionExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack step step-7. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Ro-3
AID-H-002.008	Realtime Multimodal Input Stream SecurityExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack step step-7. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Ro-1 Ro-5 Fa-1 Fa-3 Cn-8
AID-H-018.003	High-Impact Independent Validation & Approval GateExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack step step-8. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Cn-1 Cn-6 Cn-7
AID-D-015	High-Risk Approval Bypass & HITL Activity DetectionExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack step step-8. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Fa-2 Tr-2 Cn-6
AID-D-002.002	Labeled Performance Tracking with Ground Truth Feedback LoopExact SecureFlow defense-map identifier (flow atlas-aml-cs0034-prokyc-deepfake-account-fraud), verified against AIDEFEND dataVersion 2026.10.15; matched to attack step step-9. Presence supplies no score credit.	Candidate evidence route	Ro-2 Fa-1 Fa-2 Tr-2 Cn-7

Related AITBM rubrics

Ro-1: Adversarial Input Resistance Ro-5: Supply-Chain Artifact Admission Integrity Fa-1: Demographic Parity Fa-3: Representation Bias Cn-8: Untrusted Context Isolation Ro-3: Output Consistency Cn-1: Scope Enforcement Cn-6: Action Reversibility Classification Rate Cn-7: Resource and Execution-Loop Containment Fa-2: Calibration Consistency Tr-2: Confidence Calibration Ro-2: Distribution Shift Resilience