Fraudsters recently used deepfake video technology to fool an employee at a multinational company in Hong Kong into believing he was dealing with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
It cost the company a cool HK$200m (€24m).
The fake CFO mentioned that secret transactions needed to be completed. However while on the video call the employee was joined by what looked and sounded like his colleagues so his legitimate concerns were alleviated.
But the only real person on the video call was the employee. The CFO and colleagues videos were created using publicly available video conferences with audio dubbing.
The fraudsters also used WhatsApp and email messages to communicate with the employee to add legitimacy to their instructions.
The employee eventually agreed to send 15 payments worth HK$200m to five local bank accounts.
The fraud was discovered six days later only after the employee was in touch with head office.
Deepfake video technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create highly convincing fake videos and audio recordings and can enable one person’s image to be swapped for another.
You have been warned!