South Korea Ranks No.1 Vulnerable Country to Deepfake Porn... Biggest Victims Are Korean Singers

As authorities in South Korea intensify crackdowns amid the spread of ‘deepfake sex crimes’ involving the synthesis and distribution of obscene images on women’s faces, a report from an overseas security firm revealed that more than half of the victims of deepfake sexual exploitation materials distributed worldwide are Korean celebrities.

On the 28th (local time), according to the American daily The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the U.S. cybersecurity company ‘Security Hero’ announced in its recently released ‘2023 Deepfake Status’ report that South Korea is the most vulnerable country to deepfake pornography.

According to the report, Security Hero analyzed 95,820 videos posted on 10 deepfake pornography sites and 85 deepfake channels on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube from July to August last year, finding that 53% of individuals appearing in deepfake pornography were Korean.

The second largest group was Americans at 20%, followed by Japanese at 10%, and Chinese at 3%.

Notably, most of the Korean deepfake victims were entertainers such as singers and actors.

The report stated, “South Korea is the country most targeted in deepfake pornography,” adding, “While deepfakes are used for various purposes including entertainment and politics, some countries are more vulnerable to specific types of deepfake content, especially explicit content.”

The report also listed the top 10 individuals most targeted by deepfake pornography, among whom eight were Korean singers.

Ranks 1 through 7 and rank 9 were Korean singers, with the most affected Korean singer appearing in 1,595 deepfake sexual exploitation materials, accumulating 5.61 million views.

The report conveyed that 99% of deepfake pornography victims were women, and 94% were entertainment industry workers.

Additionally, 98% of the analyzed deepfake videos were pornographic, and the number of deepfake pornographic materials surged by 464% from 3,725 cases in 2022 to 21,019 cases in 2023.

The WSJ, reporting on the South Korean government’s strengthened crackdown on deepfake pornography alongside the report’s findings, stated, “The detection of a Telegram-based network generating and distributing fake pornography suggests that South Korea is the epicenter of this global issue.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.