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$25 million stolen via AI deepfake video conference

The sophisticated scam made use of AI to mimic the likeness and voices of high-ranking employees during a video call

The dangers of emerging AI technology when wielded by bad actors have become all too apparent to the employees of a multinational firm in Hong Kong. According to police, a finance worker for the firm transferred $200 million Hong Kong dollars (the equivalent of roughly $25.6 million USD) to scammers posing as the company’s executives on a fake video conference.

Originally reported by the South China Morning Post, the employee was originally skeptical of a message that claimed to be from the chief financial officer of the company, notifying the employee of a “secret transaction” he needed to make. The employee’s suspicion faded, however, after attending a video call that seemed to include the chief financial officer, as well as several other employees of the firm. Unfortunately, not all was as it appeared.

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In speaking to the city’s public broadcaster, RTHK, senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching said, “[In the] multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake.” The video call was actually a farce cooked up by sophisticated scammers utilizing AI to use to appearance and voices of several employees, including the CFO. The fake call was apparently convincing enough to fool the employee, who then transferred the large sum over 15 separate transfers. It wasn’t until the following week that the firm realized something had gone awry, when the employee contact company leadership to follow up on the transfer.

According to CNN, Hong Kong police announced that they had made six arrests in connection with similar scams, which used AI deepfakes of likenesses off of stolen identity cards. At the press briefing, Chan revealed that the stolen identity cards in question were used to make “90 loan applications and 54 bank account registrations between July and September last year.”

 

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