Fraud Unmasked: Detecting Deepfakes, Bots, and Synthetic Fraud with AI

About the Book

Fraud Unmasked: Detecting Deepfakes, Bots, and Synthetic Fraud with AI is a comprehensive and timely guide to understanding and combating the rapidly evolving world of digital fraud. As artificial intelligence reshapes global digital ecosystems, it is also being exploited by fraudsters to create deepfakes, automated bots, and synthetic identities that bypass traditional security systems.

This book explores how modern fraud has moved beyond conventional scams into highly sophisticated, AI-driven cybercrime. It provides a clear and structured understanding of synthetic identity fraud, deepfake audio and video manipulation, bot-powered attacks, and large-scale automated fraud operations. Readers are guided through cutting-edge AI and machine-learning techniques used to detect, analyze, and prevent these threats in real time.

Blending theory with practical insights, the book covers AI-powered detection frameworks, system architecture design, behavioral analytics, deepfake detection models, and real-world case studies from banking, fintech, government, and digital platforms. It also addresses ethical, regulatory, and operational challenges involved in deploying AI-based fraud detection systems.

Ideal for cybersecurity professionals, data scientists, fraud analysts, researchers, students, and policymakers, Fraud Unmasked serves as an essential resource for building resilient, intelligent, and future-ready fraud prevention strategies in the age of artificial intelligence.

About the Author

Sri Harsha Anand Pushkala is a Director of Fraud Strategy & Analytics at a U.S.-based fintech firm, where he leads global teams building large-scale AI systems to combat financial crime and synthetic identity fraud. He holds a Master’s in Computer Science from USC (Viterbi) and a Postgraduate Diploma in AI for Leaders from UT Austin. An active researcher and inventor, he has authored multiple academic papers and holds several patents in machine learning, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention. Sri Harsha is a frequent conference speaker, peer reviewer, and mentor, passionate about advancing responsible AI and data-driven innovation.

Dr. Dananjay Anand Pushkala is a global IT Service Management and Digital Transformation leader with 20+ years of experience driving large-scale operations across the U.S., India, Middle East, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. As Deputy General Manager at HCL Technologies, he manages a $150M+ portfolio, leads 1,200+ staff, and supports 250,000+ users. His career spans pivotal roles at Intaleq (Head of ITSM for FIFA 2022, 200+ staff, 99.99% service availability), Mphasis ($300M transitions across 30 countries, 3,000+ FTEs), Microland (12,000+ users, SLA >99%), and Fidor Solutions (global digital banking delivery). A pioneer in embedding Generative AI and Agentic AI into ITSM, he has led multiple AI projects automations to improve End User Experience and Create significant ROI, extended enterprise knowledge management with AI-powered retrieval, and implemented autonomous incident detection and restoration. Certified in ITIL Expert, PRINCE2, Scrum, ISO 20000, and Digital Transformation, he blends vision with pragmatism to deliver measurable business outcomes and future-ready IT ecosystems.

Dr. Vikram Neerugatti is an Associate Professor at Jain (Deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru, with over 15 years of teaching and 5+ years of research experience. He holds a PhD (CSE), M.Tech (CSE), MS in Computing (UK), and B.Tech (CSE). His expertise includes departmental operations, teaching, evaluation, examinations, and academic event coordination. Dr. Neerugatti has 21+ patents, four textbooks, 30+ publications in SCI/Scopus journals, and six best paper awards. He is an IEEE and ACM member, an AICTE grant recipient, and actively researches IoT, AR/VR, AI, ML, Fog/Edge Computing, and Data Science.