Do not believe people you’ll meet on your daily tomorrow. This could be a deepfake! The news might have been positive if the attacked company had not lost (better sit down there) $25 million! What the hell happened there? Just about to state all the facts below.
The Most Expensive Meeting in Hong Kong
The story started with an invitation to a regular meeting with colleagues. A Hong Kong multinational company employee received an invitation to a call from the firm’s chief financial officer. The topic of the call was to discuss a confidential transaction. It’s 200% that he thought it would be about his promotion. But who knew that he would be literally robbed…
Related: Canada’s Concerns on AI-Generated Deepfake Disinformation Campaigns
Well, the transaction, they were talking about was highly successful, except for this employee and the company. As a result of the call with “colleagues” who turned out to be deepfakes, he transferred $25 million to the fraudsters. This horrific story was revealed in a statement by Senior Chief Superintendent Baron Chan of the Police Force’s Cyber Security Division published on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK).
Later, cyber security found out that a deepfake simulated all the “company executives” present on the call. The only real person there was this unfortunate employee. God, what kind of trust issues he would have from now? Tinder is really off the table for him.
Thieves convinced the employee to transfer $25.5 million from the company’s funds to five different bank accounts. Interestingly, the fraud wasn’t discovered immediately and only after consultation with the corporation’s head office.
According to investigators, the fraudsters used archived footage of top managers, and the voices were faked again with the help of AI.
Has Already Happened and Will Happen Again
This is the first case of a deepfake fraud in Hong Kong. But not the first in the world. In early January, Taylor Swift became a victim of deepfake. Pornographic images allegedly featuring her began to be actively shared on Twitter (X). One such post on X received over 45 million views and hundreds of thousands of likes. The social network management even temporarily turned off the search for Swift’s name to solve the problem. However, let’s be honest! Taylor Swift received thousands of mentions per hour. When the unnamed employee got a lot of mental issues. And most likely dismissal.
In February, deepfakes of Australian magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who promoted a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform, spread online, according to cybersecurity firm Cybertrace.
According to MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, only in January his company removed more than 80 deepfakes with his image, most of which promoted crypto scams.
It’s Going To Take Some Thinking
There are almost two ways to fight against dipshits – AI (funny as it may seem) and critical thinking.
In fact, only AI can beat AI! But recognition systems have a weakness – they work better with celebrity faces because they train slowly.
Related: Researchers: Employees Shouldn’t Worry about Losing their Jobs due to AI
Therefore, we must first understand that digital faces affect human emotions to make us believe in them. Just be careful about any information and be smart about your crypto investments.
And get in the habit of checking with your colleagues about the meeting before the actual call. Code words will do too!
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