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Scammers fake a business meeting and impersonate the chief financial officer to trick a company employee.
An unidentified gang of scammers has used deepfake technology to trick an employee of a Hong Kong-based multinational into transferring millions of dollars, ultimately costing the company HK$200 million.
According to reports from Hong Kong police, the scammers first used a messaging app to invite a clerk to a video call with several other senior employees, including the company’s chief financial officer.
However, the clerk was the only real person on the call – everyone else was a deepfake reproduction.
The clerk was directed to make a number of transactions from the company’s own accounts to those provided by their fake colleagues. Believing the request to be legitimate, the employee followed the directions without question.
“[The fraudster] invited the informant [clerk] to a video conference that would have many participants. Because the people in the video conference looked like the real people, the informant ... made 15 transactions as instructed to five local bank accounts, which came to a total of HK$200 million,” acting Senior Superintendent Baron Chan told a Hong Kong news outlet.
The clerk later spoke to his real colleagues, which was when they realised the video call had been a set-up.
Chan believes the scammers first downloaded legitimate videos of the people to be faked, then used artificial intelligence (AI) to create digital copies.
“We want to alert the public to these new deception tactics. In the past, we would assume these scams would only involve two people in one-on-one situations, but we can see from this case that fraudsters are able to use AI technology in online meetings, so people must be vigilant even in meetings with lots of participants,” Chan said.
How deepfakes work
At their core, deepfakes utilise deep learning algorithms to analyse and manipulate audio and video data. These algorithms, often based on neural networks, are trained on vast amounts of data, allowing them to learn patterns and features in human faces and voices.
Once trained, deepfake algorithms can seamlessly swap faces and voices in videos, creating incredibly realistic but entirely fake content. By blending the target’s face and voice with the source material, deepfakes can depict individuals saying or doing whatever their creator wants.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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