Because once someone pretends to be you, every other control stops working. You can have firewalls, encryption, anti-malware. But if an attacker logs in with your name, your password, they don't break in. They just walk in. Identity is the crown jewel because it unlocks everything. If we lose it, we lose the whole castle. That's why protecting identity is protecting everything.
Honestly, it's not that we don't have enough technology, we actually have too much. Too many systems, too many passwords, too many regulations. So every country, every merger adds another layer of identity checks. Sometimes I feel I need a multi-factor just to get my morning coffee. So the real challenge is to make identity simple, trusted and consistent across all borders and all platforms. Attackers are not only hackers, they are great psychologists. They play with human emotions. This is urgent. It's your boss. Don't tell anyone. They create pressure so people act fast, without thinking.
They use technology, fake emails, deepfakes, cloned voices to make it look real. It's human psychology mixed with machine precision. And actually we are not fooled because we are dumb, we are fooled because we are human. So that's why awareness is just as important as any software, any technology. I'm not worried about fake movie stars, I'm worried about fake managers. Imagine a deepfake video where your CEO looks real, talks real, even uses the correct office background. And now it's OpenAI Sora 2 creating realistic people and voices. It's child play, it only takes seconds.
And that's what makes it scary. Anyone can make fake videos look real. So the next scam won't come by phishing emails. It will come by video call. Deepfakes are changing seeing is believing into seeing is deceiving. So the new rule is always verify even if the person looks perfectly real. We see more synthetic identities, completely fake people created by AI. They will have names, jobs, photos, LinkedIn history, even credit histories. So they'll apply for accounts and maybe even work for companies. Hackers won't need to steal identities, they'll just create new ones.
So the hardest part will be knowing who's real and who's not. And yes, the fake ones might even follow the rules, the policies better than we humans do. But that protecting identity is not only about technology, it's about trust. Financial institutions like Nomura have built trust for more than 100 years. With clients, with regulators, with each other.
So today, that trust lives in our digital identities. So every small action counts. Pausing before clicking, verifying before sending, reporting when something feels wrong So it's the small daily habits that build long-term trust. And if someone ever tries to deepfake me, remember, I'll never ask for a viral transfer over Zoom.
