A familiar voice is not authentication. A successful deepfake-voice readiness drill proves that employees can pause an urgent request, verify the person through a known-good channel, protect money and credentials, report the attempt, and escalate it—without relying on their ability to hear that a recording is fake.
This guide lays out a 60–90-minute exercise for finance, executive support, help-desk, identity, security, communications, legal, privacy and leadership teams. It includes scenario design, timed injects, evaluator metrics, safeguards, technical controls and an after-action process that turns observed gaps into assigned fixes and a retest date.
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What the drill is designed to prove
Write one primary objective before inviting participants: “We will test whether staff can stop an urgent voice request, verify the person independently, protect credentials and money, report the attempt, and escalate without waiting for a supervisor.”
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The exercise is not an audition for people with unusually good ears. It is a process test. The pass condition is independent verification and correct reporting, not recognition of vocal artifacts.
Why voice-clone drills matter now
The FBI’s May 15, 2025 advisory described criminals using AI-generated voice messages while impersonating senior officials and personal contacts. It advised recipients to find a trusted phone number independently and call to verify authenticity. A December 19, 2025 FBI update said the activity had occurred since at least 2023 and repeated the independent-verification advice.
On May 8, 2024, the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office warned that attackers were using convincing voice and video messages, as well as email, for phishing and social-engineering fraud. Special Agent in Charge Robert Tripp said attackers were “leveraging AI to craft highly convincing voice or video messages and emails to enable fraud schemes against individuals and businesses alike.”
The Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 analysis of voice cloning groups safeguards into upstream prevention and authentication, real-time detection and monitoring, and post-use evaluation of existing content. It also concludes that “there is no single solution.” Your drill should therefore test layered controls and human decisions rather than promise that a detector or a person can identify every synthetic recording.
Plan the 60–90-minute exercise
1. Set the scope and success criteria
Choose the business actions that would cause the most harm if performed on a convincing phone call. Include at least two of these: a payment or wire, a bank-detail or beneficiary change, a password reset, enrollment of a new MFA device, disclosure of a one-time or recovery code, privileged-access approval, or release of sensitive data.
Define success in observable terms:
- The player pauses before performing the requested action.
- The player does not use the callback number, link or contact supplied by the suspicious message.
- The player finds a number in a directory, contract, previously confirmed record or another independent source.
- The player verifies through that known-good channel or obtains confirmation from another trusted person.
- The player refuses passwords, MFA codes, recovery codes and unnecessary sensitive information.
- The player reports promptly through the organization’s designated channel.
- The appropriate finance, identity, security and leadership owners are notified.
- Any affected account, payment, forwarding rule or MFA enrollment is checked for unauthorized change.
Set a measurement baseline in this first exercise. No reliable, directly relevant public pass-rate benchmark was established for deepfake-voice drills, so do not invent one. Improvement is measured against your own retest.
2. Select participants and exercise roles
Include people who can approve, execute or contain the high-impact actions:
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- Executive assistants and staff who route requests for senior leaders.
- Help-desk, identity and access-management personnel.
- Security operations or incident-response staff.
- Communications, legal and privacy representatives when notification or data handling may be involved.
- One senior sponsor who can remove organizational barriers after the exercise.
Assign a facilitator to run the session, a controller or inject operator to deliver the scenario, evaluators to record behavior, and a note-taker to capture exact observations and times. Keep observers separate from players during the hotwash so participants can describe uncertainty without performing for an audience. CISA’s Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Package (CTEP) uses distinct planning, facilitation, participant-feedback and after-action structures that fit this division of labor.
3. Establish safeguards before anyone receives an inject
Tell participants that the scenario is artificial, plausible and free of trick questions. Only the exercise team should know the inject schedule. State the exercise boundaries in writing:
- Do not use real credentials, real money, production account changes or live customer data.
- Do not record or distribute a real employee’s voice without explicit consent.
- Pre-approve the scenario with legal, HR, privacy and labor stakeholders where required.
- Use a separate exercise mailbox, test account and payment sandbox when demonstrating a transaction or reset.
- Publish a stop word that immediately ends the simulation.
- Give players a real-world incident contact in case an exercise message resembles an actual event.
- Tell evaluators to record behavior and timing, not personal judgments.
If you use audio, obtain consent from the person whose voice is imitated and keep the file inside the exercise environment. A synthetic voice is optional: a live facilitator, a voice message, or a facilitator-read transcript can test the same decisions with less privacy and technical risk.
Build a realistic deepfake-voice scenario
Choose the identity and the requested action
Start with an identity that carries authority or familiarity: a known executive, a vendor contact, a family member of an executive, or a help-desk colleague. The caller should request one high-impact action, not a vague “security check.” Examples include:
- Approving an invoice or changing a supplier’s bank details.
- Sending an urgent wire, gift card purchase or cryptocurrency transfer.
- Resetting a password or enrolling a new MFA device.
- Reading a one-time code or recovery code over the phone.
- Sending a customer list, contract, payroll file or other sensitive document.
- Bypassing normal approval because “the executive is in a meeting.”
Use a plausible work context, but do not rely on private biographical details that could embarrass a participant. The point is to test whether the process withstands authority and time pressure.
Use urgency and channel switching deliberately
Social-engineering attempts often combine a familiar identity with a deadline, secrecy and a request to move channels. An example opening is: “I am boarding a flight and need this beneficiary changed before the bank cutoff. Do not call the office; send the confirmation code here.” The wording should create pressure without adding a puzzle that rewards guessing.
Keep the requested action within the participant’s actual authority. If a help-desk analyst cannot approve a payment, test a password or MFA reset instead. If a finance employee cannot reset an account, test a beneficiary change or urgent wire.
Deliver timed injects
A controller can run the following sequence in approximately 50 minutes, leaving the remaining time for briefing, hotwash and planning. Adjust the pace to your organization’s procedures and avoid revealing the next inject.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors- Minute 0 — Initial contact: Deliver a live call, voice message or transcript that appears to come from a familiar identity and requests one high-impact action.
- Minute 10 — Channel pressure: Have the caller ask the player to continue by SMS or an encrypted messaging application, claiming the normal channel is inconvenient.
- Minute 20 — Verification challenge: Say the normal callback number is unavailable and pressure the player to use the number displayed in the message.
- Minute 30 — MFA or payment escalation: Request a one-time code, unexpected push approval, wire, gift card, cryptocurrency transfer or bank-detail change.
- Minute 40 — Internal spread: Send a related message to a second employee. This tests whether the first report reaches the right team and whether staff connect the events.
- Minute 50 — Response and recovery: Ask security what accounts, vendors, payments, forwarding rules or communications must be checked, and who owns each notification decision.
Use current policies and realistic assumptions. CISA exercise methodology emphasizes facilitator-led sequencing, clear reporting channels and treating the discovery of gaps as an important outcome rather than a failure of the people who exposed them.
What participants should do when the call arrives
Stop the requested action
Pause payment, reset, enrollment, disclosure or access approval. Do not “hold the line” while carrying out the request. State a neutral boundary such as, “I must complete our independent verification process before I can do that.” This prevents urgency or hierarchy from silently becoming authorization.
Verify through a known-good channel
Find the person’s number in the corporate directory, a contract, a previously confirmed contact record or another source that was not supplied by the suspicious message. Call that number yourself, or ask a second trusted person to confirm the request through an independent channel. Never authenticate the request by calling the number in the message, following its link or replying in the same conversation.
The FBI specifically recommends independent confirmation before sending money or other assets. A familiar voice can be nearly identical to a known contact, so a successful callback is more meaningful than confidence in what the audio sounds like.
Protect authentication factors and data
Never provide a password, one-time code, recovery code or approval for an unexpected MFA push. The FBI warns against providing two-factor codes through email, SMS or an encrypted messaging application. Do not send a sensitive file merely because the caller knows internal names or sounds senior.
Report and preserve evidence
Use the organization’s one published reporting channel—such as a security mailbox, hotline or incident form—without waiting for a supervisor. Preserve the message, phone number, recording or transcript, timestamps, headers or metadata where available, and the accounts or vendors mentioned. Do not delete the conversation after reporting it.
Escalate possible compromise
If a player already approved a payment, reset an account, enrolled MFA, clicked a link or disclosed information, say so immediately. Security, finance, identity and leadership owners should determine whether to block a payment, disable a session, revoke tokens, remove a forwarding rule, reset credentials, contact a vendor or notify affected people.
Score behavior, not confidence
Give each evaluator a sheet with yes/no fields, elapsed times and a short evidence note. A simple rubric can include:
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- Stopped before taking the requested action.
- Rejected the supplied callback number or link.
- Completed independent verification.
- Refused MFA codes, recovery codes, passwords and unnecessary sensitive data.
- Reported promptly to the correct channel and owner.
- Preserved relevant evidence.
- Triggered finance, identity or security escalation when appropriate.
- Resisted hierarchy, secrecy and deadline pressure without creating an unsafe confrontation.
- Connected the second employee’s related report to the first event.
- Receiving teams began containment and recovery checks.
Record these measures:
| Measure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Time to first report | How quickly the organization activates its reporting path. |
| Time to independent verification | Whether staff can locate and use a trusted contact method under pressure. |
| Time to security escalation | How fast a suspicious request reaches containment owners. |
| Unauthorized-action count | Whether any payment, reset, enrollment, disclosure or access change occurred before verification. |
| Verification rate | Percentage of players who used a known-good channel rather than audio judgment. |
| Process-adherence rate | Percentage following the documented stop, verify, report and escalate sequence. |
| Related-report connection | Whether separate reports are correlated into one incident. |
Use a no-blame standard. CISA guidance supports realistic testing, clear channels and a culture in which employees report promptly even when they believe they made a mistake. A delayed report is usually more damaging than an honest first report.
Compare exercise formats before choosing one
| Format | Realism | Safety and consent | Best coverage | Measurement and repeatability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live facilitator call | High conversational pressure and interruption. | No synthetic audio required; still announce boundaries. | Executive support, finance and help desk. | Easy to time; rerun with different roles and scripts. |
| Recorded voice message | Tests voicemail and asynchronous decision-making. | Use synthetic audio or a consented voice; protect the file. | Executives, vendors and distributed teams. | Highly repeatable; measure open, report and callback times. |
| Facilitator-read transcript | Moderate realism with minimal technical distraction. | Lowest recording and data-handling risk. | Cross-functional tabletop discussion. | Simple to rerun; less evidence about audio-specific reactions. |
| Discussion-only inject | Lowest realism but useful for policy discovery. | Minimal risk. | Leadership, legal, privacy and communications decisions. | Good for ownership gaps; weak for measuring individual response time. |
Choose the least intrusive format that still tests the decision you care about. Do not make a real person’s voice the centerpiece when a transcript can test the same callback and reporting procedure.
Technical and policy controls to rehearse
Independent verification rules
Document that a request involving money, credentials, MFA, privileged access or sensitive data must be confirmed through a known-good contact method. The suspicious message cannot supply the sole proof of identity.
Phishing-resistant MFA
Require identity proofing before MFA enrollment, reset or recovery-code issuance. CISA’s August 29, 2025 guidance identifies a physical security key as the strongest preferred MFA method for phishing resistance. A security key does not eliminate social engineering, but it reduces the value of a stolen code and gives the help desk fewer secrets to handle.
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Payment and beneficiary controls
Require a second approver and an independently initiated callback for new beneficiaries, bank-detail changes, urgent wires, gift cards and cryptocurrency. Store the callback number in the vendor record or another controlled system, not in the incoming request.
Help-desk identity controls
Require documented identity proofing and a callback to a directory number before a password reset, MFA reset or recovery-code issuance. If the employee cannot complete the check, defer the action and escalate rather than inventing a workaround.
Reporting and evidence handling
Publish one easy-to-find channel and state what to include: caller number, message or transcript, time, requested action, people involved and any action already taken. Restrict access to recordings and transcripts, retain them according to your incident-response and privacy rules, and preserve metadata where available.
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Ask what happened, not who failed
Immediately after the final inject, ask each player:
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- What did you see or hear first?
- Which detail created urgency or authority pressure?
- What did you do, and at what time?
- Which policy, directory or tool did you need?
- What information was missing or hard to find?
- Which step felt hardest under pressure?
- What would have made the safe action faster?
Separate observations from judgments. “The directory had three numbers and no verification date” is actionable; “Finance was careless” is not.
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Turn every gap into ownership
For each gap, record the observed condition, the risk, the corrective action, one named owner, a due date and a retest date. Typical actions include:
- Create a verified executive-contact directory with an owner and review interval.
- Add known-good callback requirements to payment and bank-detail procedures.
- Require dual approval for urgent wires, gifts and cryptocurrency.
- Add callback proofing to help-desk password and MFA-reset runbooks.
- Publish a one-page “stop, verify, report” card beside payment and support workflows.
- Establish a shared incident mailbox or hotline with a monitored backup.
- Define who can block a payment, revoke access, contact a vendor and approve communications.
- Schedule a retest using a different identity, channel or pressure tactic.
CISA’s CTEP materials include participant-feedback and after-action-report structures that can be adapted to document these commitments. Do not close the exercise until every material gap has an owner and a date.
Common failure modes and fixes
“The voice sounded perfect, so I trusted it.”
Fix the pass condition. Require independent verification for high-impact actions regardless of how authentic the voice sounds. Audio judgment alone is unreliable.
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Fix the contact source. Store trusted numbers in a controlled directory, contract record or previously confirmed contact list, and train staff to initiate the callback themselves.
“The executive said it was confidential.”
Fix the policy language. Secrecy and rank do not override payment, identity or data-handling controls. Give employees a respectful script for declining until verification is complete.
“The help desk reset access to be helpful.”
Fix the reset workflow. Require proofing and a callback to a directory number, and make escalation faster than an improvised exception.
“People were afraid to report because they had clicked.”
Fix the culture and channel. Tell employees to report immediately, preserve evidence and state exactly what happened. Evaluate response speed and containment, not whether someone avoided every mistake.
“The exercise stopped after the first refusal.”
Fix the scope. Continue through internal spread and recovery so security, finance, identity and communications practice coordination, not just the first employee’s decision.
Use detection cues as prompts, not proof
Participants can note abrupt changes in cadence, unnatural pauses, odd phrasing, background inconsistencies, unusual requests or pressure to switch channels. These cues may justify a pause, but they should never be the only reason to reject or accept a request. The FBI warns that AI-generated voices can sound nearly identical to known contacts, and the FTC identifies limitations in watermarking, real-time detection and post-use analysis. Layered controls and process adherence are more dependable than human confidence or a single detection tool.
Retest for improvement
Schedule the retest while the after-action meeting is still open. Change at least one variable: use a different role, a voice message instead of a live call, a vendor scenario instead of an executive scenario, or a password-reset request instead of a payment. Keep the same core measurements so you can compare time to verification, reporting rate, unauthorized actions and escalation speed.
A mature program repeats the drill after corrective actions, during onboarding for high-risk roles and whenever payment, help-desk or MFA procedures change. The goal is not to make employees suspicious of every call. It is to make independent verification an automatic control whenever a familiar voice asks for money, credentials, access or sensitive information.
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