Techniques are provided for deep neural network (DNN) identification of realistic synthetic images generated using a generative adversarial network (GAN). According to an embodiment, a system is described that can comprise a memory that stores computer executable components and a processor that executes the computer executable components stored in the memory. The computer executable components can comprise, a first extraction component that extracts a subset of synthetic images classified as non-real like as opposed to real-like, wherein the subset of synthetic images were generated using a GAN model. The computer executable components can further comprise a training component that employs the subset of synthetic images and real images to train a DNN network model to classify synthetic images generated using the GAN model as either real-like or non-real like.