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A post shared by Rashmika Mandanna (@rashmika_mandanna)

Recently, a fake video of the actress created with the help of DeepFake has taken the internet by storm. The video shows her entering an elevator wearing a sports outfit.

However, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a deepfake – a digitally manipulated video. The fake video is so convincing that no one has questioned its veracity to this point, and in a short time it has managed to garner millions of views, and on X – formerly known as Twitter – views are over 2.4 million.

Journalist Abhishek Kumar shared the video on X, expressing his concerns about the need for new legal and regulatory measures to combat the spread of fake content on the Internet.

Despite the unpleasant moment for Rashmika Mandana, she shared how she felt after what happened and thanked people for their support.

“I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused”, Mandanna began in a statement posted Monday to X (formerly Twitter).

The video was originally shared on Instagram about a month ago, but with another woman named Zara Patel. There is no evidence to suggest Patel was involved in the making of the Deepfake video.

“Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft”, she continued.

The first video which is original and the second video which is #deepfake.

A deepfake video was going viral on SM in which #RashmikaMandanna's face was edited.

AI is dangerous! Be safe girls!
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.#RashmikaMandannahot #DelhiNCR #earthquakes #viralvideo… pic.twitter.com/HNvqYMDsTe

— Priya Sarkar (@QueenPinkSoul69) November 6, 2023

Patel was not late to comment on the case and shared a story on her Instagram account expressing her concerns about the future of the fairer sex. “I worry for the future of women and girls who now have to be even more afraid to show themselves on social media.”

This is not an isolated case as various celebrities from different fields have fallen victim to such fake videos in recent years.

ESET’s research found that the Android app “iRecorder – Screen Recorder” introduced the malicious code as an app update almost a year after it was first listed on Google Play. According to ESET, the code allowed the app to invisibly upload one minute of ambient audio from the device’s microphone every 15 minutes, as well as extract documents, web pages and media files from the user’s phone.

Google Play has removed the app from its list. It’s a good idea to delete the app if it was installed on your device. The malicious app has accumulated more than 50,000 downloads.

ESET is calling the malicious code AhRat, a customized version of an open-source remote access trojan called AhMyth. Remote access trojans (or RATs) take advantage of broad access to a victim’s device and can often include remote control, but also function similarly to spyware and stalkerware.

In fact, AhMyth isn’t sneaking onto Google Play for the first time. Both Google and Apple check apps for malware before listing them for download. Last year, Google said it prevented more than 1.4 million privacy-violating apps from accessing Google Play.