An extremely well-crafted deepfake scam has proven very costly to a Hong Kong company. Hackers have in fact managed to recreate an entire team of the company using deepfake and imitate their voice using AI, in order to trap an employee by encouraging him to transfer 25 million dollars to several accounts.
Deepfake users clearly don’t want their favorite technology to have good press. In recent days alone, several cases involving deepfakes and AI in general have shaken the Internet. While fake pornographic images of Taylor Swift circulated on X (Twitter), in France, it was Kylian Mbappé who supposedly encouraged his fans to play online gambling games.
It is therefore difficult to see deepfake in a positive light, and it is not the latest scam that will fix things. It all starts in Hong Kong, when an employee of a multinational receives an invitation for a videoconference meeting. From the start, he appears suspicious, thinking it is a scam. He still decides to go there and, quickly, he is reassured to see several of his colleagues present at the meeting.
A deepfake scam cost this company dearly
He was then asked to make several transfers to five bank accounts, for a total of 200 million Hong Kong dollars, or nearly 24 million euros. Still taken aback by this request, the employee then calls several of his colleagues. Shock: in truth, no one other than him participated in this meeting. The people he chatted with are in truth completely fake and were created by AI.
On the same subject — AI: YouTube bans deepfakes featuring victims of violence
Deepfakes “more real than life” according to Baron Chan Shun-ching, chief superintendent in Hong Kong, carried out after months of collection and analysis of employee videos by hackers in order to train their artificial intelligence. Although this is not the first scam of its kind, its impact is still cause for concern, while legislation and better protection against deepfakes are seriously overdue.
Source: RTHK