Ex-NASA Chief Cloud Architect Delivers Critical First Line of Defense Against AI-Powered Voice and Video Call Spoofing, Hijacking, and Deepfake Impersonation
Polyguard, the first real-time defense against deepfakes and AI-powered fraud, launched today to provide proactive protection against multi-channel fraud and impersonation attacks. Polyguard is redefining anti-fraud technology for the AI era, giving financial institutions, businesses, and individuals full control over their personal and critical communications.
AI-driven fraud is surging, with U.S. financial industry losses projected to hit $40 billion by 2027, up from $12.3 billion in 2023. Deepfake scams have become a top concern among private banking customers, as traditional fraud detection fails to prevent impersonation attacks, leading to account takeovers, unauthorized transactions, and push payment fraud.
Current deepfake detection tools are largely ineffective, operating defensively after an attack has already begun. They experience a 15–30 second delay, focus only on audio while neglecting video and messaging, and rely on AI battling AI rather than proactively verifying identity. Worse, these systems inadvertently train generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create even more convincing deepfakes—fueling an arms race that fraudsters are winning.
Polyguard takes a preventative approach, stopping threats before they begin with real-time inbound and outbound number blocking (an industry first), caller ID spoofing protection, identity-verified encrypted calling channels, and secure video conferencing across mobile and desktop. By integrating with call center software as well as meeting platforms like Zoom, Polyguard ensures safe virtual communications globally. Its tamper-evident caller identity system prevents spoofing, while 3D facial recognition and hardware attestation blocks digital fakes and device tampering. Built with privacy-first principles, all calls remain confidential, and sensitive data stays on the device.
“Phone scams are at the heart of a $40B crime spree, and we are committed to stopping it at the technological source,” said Joshua McKenty, CEO and Co-Founder, Polyguard. “Everyone from bankers to high school students are facing an onslaught of deepfake-driven scams, from voice spoofing to video impersonation. Detection alone isn’t enough—by the time you realize a trusted caller ID is fake, the damage is done. We stop fraud before it starts, blocking spoofed calls in real-time and restoring trust in communications”
“Like many others, I don’t think our banking and brokerage partners fully grasp the scale of this problem—but I’d rather not have my family office accounts be their costly wake-up call,” said Andrew Wilkinson, CEO, Tiny, Ltd. Wilkinson’s family office is a design partner of Polyguard.
McKenty and his co-founder, Khadem Badiyan (CTO), bring deep expertise in security, AI, and cloud infrastructure. McKenty, former Chief Cloud Architect at NASA, co-founded OpenStack, was Tech Lead for Netscape 8.0, served as Field CTO at Pivotal and was the founding CEO of Piston, which was later acquired by Cisco. Badiyan, an AI startup founder and mathematician, pioneered semantic analysis of social media images and conducted PhD research in p-adic analysis and cryptography.
Now available to financial institutions, family offices, professional advisors, and individuals looking to enhance financial security and take back control of their communications, Polyguard is bridging the ‘last mile’ of new identity infrastructure.
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