Earlier this year, Magnet Forensics introduced an early access feature with AI capabilities in their Magnet Axiom & Magnet Axiom Cyber products to fight in the battle against deepfakes: Magnet Copilot.
Originally trialed and tested in the Magnet Idea Lab and in collaboration with Medex Forensics, Magnet Copilot became available with Magnet Axiom & Magnet Axiom Cyber 8.0 as an early access feature to fight against deepfakes by giving users a chance to identify synthetic media and surface relevant evidence in cases.
In this Q&A, we talk with Magnet Forensics’ Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, Jad Saliba about what’s next for Magnet Copilot, his thoughts on AI in DFIR, the acquisition of Medex Forensics, and what other emerging technologies trends the community should be keeping an eye out for.
FF: What trends are you seeing in synthetic media?
Folks across the whole DFIR field have seen a large increase in the malicious use of deepfake technology, including non-consensual pornography, CSAM, disinformation, false evidence, fake news, scams, blackmail, and fraud. While deepfakes aren’t new, advances in machine learning and AI have increased the speed, accuracy, and availability of developing that synthetic media.
This is definitely a case where the technology (and misuse of it) is getting ahead of general knowledge of enforcement and legislation—many people don’t even know what a deepfake is, making it a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.
FF: What should examiners be on the lookout for?
When investigating a case, it’s crucial for examiners and investigators to know the validity of the evidence they’re looking at. It’s part of the bedrock of the whole investigation. That’s why we integrated Magnet Copilot for Magnet Axiom & Magnet Axiom Cyber—we wanted to give users the ability to analyze images and videos to determine their authenticity and identify synthetic or generated media.
FF: How did Magnet Copilot come to be?
Magnet Copilot originally took life in the Magnet Idea Lab, which is a community of DFIR professionals and Magnet customers that take an early look at new and innovative solutions we’re offering and help stress-test them to make sure they’re the best products possible before becoming generally available to customers. From there, we were able to first introduce it in Magnet Axiom & Magnet Axiom 8.0.
FF: Are there any other challenges that Magnet Copilot helps with?
In addition to giving examiners the ability to analyze images and videos to determine whether they are synthetic or generated media, Magnet Copilot also helps examiners use integrated AI tools to quickly find the evidence that is relevant to their case, with a Q&A function that can help you quickly narrow in on key results.
As the quantity and sizes of devices have grown, forensics teams are consistently faced with an overwhelming volume of digital evidence in their investigations. So, getting to the evidence that is relevant is a persistent challenge.
To use the Q&A function, you simply select the data, such as a conversation thread or web search, and then you can enter questions about the data, and Magnet Copilot will highlight relevant artifacts. Responses provided through the interface also include citations for the case data so that you can easily validate the results and investigate further.
FF: What is next for Magnet Copilot?
We initially piloted and launched Magnet Copilot as a cloud-based integration but saw that some agencies haven’t been able to use it because of the need to upload data to the cloud—especially when it comes to cases that have sensitive data.
So, we have been working to bring the powerful AI capabilities of Copilot to even more Axiom users and are excited to share that we are going to be making Copilot functionality available offline with a fall release of Axiom and Axiom Cyber.
The offline version lets us bring the deepfake detection and Q&A capabilities to labs that are not connected to the internet or can’t upload case data to the cloud. We will keep building on the cloud-based version of Magnet Copilot for our cloud native applications but feel that the upcoming offline version of Magnet Copilot opens up the opportunity for more customers to experience the benefits of AI in their local environment.
And of course, we’re continuing to iterate on functionality and features based on customer use and feedback!
FF: How does Medex Forensics help?
For analysis of videos, we initially partnered with Medex Forensics to help determine where video files originated, if they are camera-original content, and if they have been edited or generated with tools such as face-swap or re-face. Once that Medex analysis is completed, users have an option to save a PDF report which can be added to your case.
We’ve since announced that we’ve acquired Medex Forensics and are extremely proud and excited to have them join the Magnet Forensics team! It’s an amazing opportunity for us to continue to innovate with technology that is already best-in-class and has proved vital for agencies across the world to validate critical video evidence.
FF: How can users get started?
Stay tuned for more information on the upcoming release that will bring Copilot functionality to users whose forensics workstations aren’t connected to the internet.
Once that release is live, if you’re a user of Axiom or Axiom Cyber, you can update to the latest version or start a free trial to start using the early access of Magnet Copilot.
And we’d love to hear any feedback about Magnet Copilot, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at sales@magnetforensics.com to let us know what you think or to learn more!
