Finance professional disburses $25 million following video call featuring deepfake ‘chief financial officer’
According to Hong Kong police, a finance employee at a multinational corporation fell victim to a sophisticated scam where fraudsters utilized deepfake technology to impersonate the company’s chief financial officer during a video conference call, resulting in a loss of $25 million.
In this intricate scheme, the unsuspecting worker believed they were engaging in a video call with several colleagues, only to discover that all participants were actually deepfake replicas, as revealed during a briefing by senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching on Friday to the city’s public broadcaster RTHK.
Chan mentioned that the employee became wary upon receiving a message allegedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer, discussing the necessity for a confidential transaction. Initially, the worker considered it a phishing attempt. However, the worker disregarded initial suspicions following the video call, as the participants appeared and sounded identical to recognized colleagues, as per Chan’s statement.
The worker, convinced of the authenticity of everyone on the call, consented to transfer a sum totaling $200 million Hong Kong dollars, approximately $25.6 million, as disclosed by the police officer.
This incident is among several recent instances where fraudsters purportedly employed deepfake technology to manipulate publicly accessible videos and other footage to defraud individuals.
During the press briefing on Friday, Hong Kong police announced six arrests linked to such fraudulent activities.
Chan revealed that eight stolen Hong Kong identity cards, all reported as lost by their owners, were utilized to submit 90 loan applications and register 54 bank accounts between July and September of the previous year.
Police investigations revealed that AI deepfakes were deployed at least 20 times to deceive facial recognition systems by replicating individuals depicted on the stolen identity cards.
The fraudulent scheme involving the false CFO came to light only after the employee verified with the corporation’s headquarters.
Hong Kong police refrained from disclosing the company’s name or specific details, including the identity of the worker involved.
Authorities worldwide are increasingly alarmed by the sophistication of deepfake technology and its potential for malicious exploitation.
In late January, pornographic images generated by AI depicting American pop star Taylor Swift circulated widely on social media, highlighting the harmful implications of artificial intelligence technology.
These images, portraying the singer in sexually suggestive and explicit poses, garnered tens of millions of views before they were removed from social platforms.
