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According to the South China Morning Post, a combination of deepfake video conferencing and social engineering techniques resulted in the theft of more than $25 million in value from a multinational company.
The program with deepfake video conference call
The attack first sent messages to several employees at the company, but ultimately only one employee – an employee in the finance department of the company’s Hong Kong branch – appeared to be deceived.
According to the South China Morning Post, the employee became suspicious when they received information that the company’s UK-based chief financial officer allegedly asked the employee to conduct secret transactions. But the employee was later invited to a group video conference, calming their anger.
The video conference was attended by the company’s CFO, other company employees, and even outsiders—or so it seemed.
In fact, scammers use previous video and audio clips and artificial intelligence technology to create the illusion that these people are on the call, and let these digital entertainment “speak” to achieve this illusion.
Superintendent Chen Shunqing of the Hong Kong Police Cyber Security Department told the South China Morning Post, “During the video conference, the scammer asked the victim to introduce himself, but did not actually interact with the victim. The fake image on the screen mainly appeared after the conference ended suddenly. Give the order before.”
After the call ended, the scammers sent additional instructions via instant message, email, and one-on-one video calls. Following the instructions, the employee remitted a total of HK$200 million to five local bank accounts.
Hong Kong police said the scammers also contacted several other employees at the company’s branches, but did not disclose how those interactions unfolded.
Deepfakes are becoming increasingly difficult to identify
Artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, whether audio or video, are increasingly being exploited by scammers and other scammers.
They use artificial intelligence to impersonate troubled family members, impersonate individuals to open bank accounts or make fraudulent purchases in their own names, apply for loans, obtain remote IT jobs, and (in this case) trick executives and employees into transferring companies funds.
Most people overestimate their deepfake detection abilities. This is new territory, and deepfakes are becoming more and more real and harder to spot.
“We want to alert the public to these new deception tactics. In the past, we would have thought that these scams would only involve two people one-on-one, but from this case we can see that scammers can use artificial intelligence in online meetings technology, so people have to be alert even in meetings with people. There are many participants,” Chen Shunqing said at a press conference.
Hong Kong police advise members of the public to ask questions during these meetings, ask participants to leave, and confirm requests made during conference calls through other communication channels.
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