Software Engineer

When anyone can fake anyone: how SA is tackling the deepfake surge. Deepfake-enabled scams are becoming harder to spot, especially when they imitate executives, colleagues or trusted brands. Businesses need early insight into these synthetic threats by tracking impersonation activity across the web and surfacing it while it still has limited reach. Deepfakes bypass technical safeguards entirely by targeting human trust. Over the past several months, deepfakes and identity cloning have moved from a fringe novelty to one of the most serious cyber security concerns facing South African organisations. What began as simple voice mimicry has escalated into convincing video impersonations, cloned social media profiles, fabricated ads and co-ordinated multi-channel scams. These attacks are no longer limited to state-sponsored adversaries or high-end cyber crime groups, either. With widely accessible AI tools, anyone can now generate realistic impersonations of executives, brands or employees in minutes. This shift has caught many organisations unprepared. Conventional security controls were built to stop malware, intrusions or network abuse, not AI-generated deception that looks and sounds legitimate. Deepfakes bypass technical safeguards entirely by targeting human trust. The impact is immediate and severe. Fraudulent payment requests appear to come from real executives. Customers are directed to cloned websites that look indistinguishable from legitimate portals. Staff engage with fake internal messages or outreach from what appears to be the company's own leadership team. The attack surface is no longer the network. It is the organisation's identity. Doppel, now partnered with Symbiosys, is approaching this problem from the ground up. Doppel unifies digital risk protection and human risk management to stop digital threats before they scale and empower teams to lead the defence. Doppel's AI-native social engineering defence platform is purpose built to counter the multi-channel impersonation techniques that attackers rely on today and continuously monitors for spoofed domains, fake profiles, malicious ads and impersonation attempts across the public web, social channels, forums, apps and messaging platforms. This matters because deepfake-enabled attacks rarely occur in isolation. A cloned LinkedIn profile links to a fake recruiting e-mail. A spoofed domain supports a fraudulent vendor invoice. A deepfake voice message amplifies social proof. The power of Doppel's approach is that it unifies these signals rather than treating them as independent incidents. Through early and actionable alerts, organisations can respond to emerging impersonation campaigns before they escalate into financial loss, reputational damage or customer exploitation. Andy Fidgeon, International Channel Manager at Doppel, explains: "Attackers are no longer breaking into networks first. They are breaking into identities. Cloned profiles, spoofed domains and fabricated ads create a level of credibility that traditional security tools were never built to detect." For security leaders, this represents a critical evolution in defensive strategy. Patrick Assheton-Smith, CEO of Symbiosys IT, adds: "Most businesses simply do not have the tooling or visibility to detect identity cloning at scale. The attacks are too fast, too personalised and too distributed across digital channels to manage manually. By using an AI-native approach that understands how modern impersonation attacks spread, Doppel allows organisations to operate with the same speed and awareness as the threat actors targeting them." The relevance for South African organisations cannot be overstated. Many operate with lean security teams and rely heavily on trust-based communication channels with customers and suppliers. Deepfake-driven attacks exploit that trust directly. Fraudsters do not need to breach infrastructure if they can convincingly imitate the people or brands involved. A platform capable of identifying and dismantling these impersonation pipelines in real time provides a meaningful layer of protection in an environment where digital trust has become the primary currency. Symbiosys' partnership with Doppel aims to bring this capability into the hands of local businesses at a time when the threat is accelerating faster than awareness. With every major organisation now vulnerable to AI-driven impersonation, the need for a unified social engineering defence platform has become immediate rather than theoretical. Deepfakes are no longer a preview of future risk. They are already shaping the present. For organisations looking to protect their customers, staff and brand from the new wave of AI-powered social engineering, Doppel offers a practical and proactive path forward. Editorial contacts Patrick Assheton-Smith

Introducing Doppel's New AI Content Builder. Attackers are personalizing. Is your training? See how Doppel's new AI Content Builder helps you create custom, company-branded training in minutes, not weeks. March 19, 2026 * The End of the Generic Security Module: Introducing Doppel's New AI Content Builder * From Generic Modules to Organization-Specific Training * Custom Content Built for How Modern Social Engineering Evolves The End of the Generic Security Module: Introducing Doppel's New AI Content Builder. Today's social engineering attacks are highly contextual. They reference internal tools, mimic real vendors, exploit active projects, and tailor messaging to specific roles. An accounts payable specialist receives a payment redirection request aligned to current vendor workflows. An engineer is targeted with MFA fatigue prompts during an active deployment. An executive assistant is contacted with a calendar pretext tied to a real leadership offsite. Attackers personalize by default. Most awareness programs do not. When training content remains generic, it fails to prepare employees for the scenarios they will actually encounter in their specific role, department, or company. It becomes a compliance artifact rather than an operational defense layer. To address modern risks, awareness must be threat-informed, environment-specific, and continuously adaptable. Doppel's Security Awareness Training solution was built to address that need with tailored, relevant training content for every situation. Today, Doppel is extending that approach by allowing companies to create organization-specific content with its new AI Content Builder. In just a few clicks, teams can create custom, company-branded training on any topic: from emerging attack patterns to internal policies or new tools. Security teams can go from idea to deployed training in minutes, not weeks. From Generic Modules to Organization-Specific Training. Security awareness training has long operated on a simple assumption: Standardized education at scale reduces human risk. That approach made sense when compliance requirements were the primary driver of programs. A library of generic phishing examples, password hygiene reminders, and annual certification modules was considered sufficient. But that's no longer how risk manifests inside organizations. Doppel's Security Awareness Training was designed around a simple principle: Effective education mirrors real attack patterns. Its content library includes hundreds of threat-informed videos and interactive courses built on modern social engineering tactics, from credential harvesting and MFA manipulation to vendor impersonation and executive targeting. Organizations can incorporate their own branding into prebuilt courses, align visual identity with internal standards, and deploy content that feels embedded within their environment rather than outsourced to a third party. But even the most comprehensive library cannot anticipate every organization's unique workflows, milestones, policies, or risk priorities. Security leaders consistently face moments where tailored content is required, whether reinforcing a new policy, addressing a spike in a specific attack pattern, or responding to industry-specific campaigns. Historically, creating custom awareness content for those moments meant expensive production cycles, external vendors, or significant internal effort. Doppel's AI Content Builder changes that. What once required weeks of coordination can now be done in minutes, directly within Doppel. Now, organizations can generate high-quality, custom training in just a few clicks. Security teams define the topic or training objective, set the desired length and visual identity, and incorporate company-specific source material, including internal policies or procedural guidance. Doppel then generates an outline of the course, detailing each lesson and associated components. Customers can review the outline and make adjustments to ensure the course aligns with their needs. The result is tailored, threat-informed content aligned to the organization's environment, brand, and risk landscape. Instead of adapting your risk to fit static content, you create content that fits your risk. What was once complex and time-consuming can now be done in minutes. Custom Content Built for How Modern Social Engineering Evolves. Attackers iterate quickly. They test new pretexts, exploit emerging technologies, and refine psychological tactics in real time. Security awareness programs must be able to respond with the same agility. Security teams looking to stay ahead of the latest attacker tactics need to move quickly, iterate easily, and deploy training as threats evolve. Doppel's AI Content Builder enables security leaders to operationalize that responsiveness at scale. If a new wave of AI-driven voice phishing targets your industry, you can deploy a focused training module specific to that tactic the same day. If your organization rolls out new identity verification procedures, you can reinforce them with customized awareness content tied directly to your internal language and workflows. If a specific company announcement increases exposure to targeted attacks, you can proactively spin up a course to warn your employees to be vigilant in near-real time. The goal is not simply engagement. It is behavioral relevance. When users see scenarios that reflect their everyday tools, their actual policies, and the threats targeting their sector, training becomes credible. Credibility drives retention. Retention drives resilience. Security awareness should not be static or detached from the realities of your environment. It should evolve alongside your threat landscape and reinforce the controls, policies, and workflows unique to your organization. Doppel's Security Awareness Training provides the threat-informed foundation. AI Content Builder extends it, giving security leaders the ability to create tailored, organization-specific training on demand. Because reducing human risk requires more than broad education, it demands personalization and agility. It requires precision. AI Content Builder is available today within Doppel's Security Awareness Training platform. To see how tailored awareness and custom training can strengthen your human risk posture, meet with its team.