Recently, a finance professional at a multinational company in Hong Kong, China, lost up to US$25 million (HKD 200 million) when he was deceived by a deep fake of the CFO in London during a video conference. The fake video was reportedly created by using recordings of real past online meetings, while using WhatsApp, email, and one-on-one video conferences to enhance the depth and credibility of the fraud.
The Hong Kong employee participated in a video chat in which his chief financial officer appeared on screen but acted a little off. He was initially suspicious, but his nerves eased when he recognized other colleagues who appeared to have joined the call, according to Hong Kong police.
Source Note: The image is generated by AI, and the image is authorized by Midjourney
The fake CFO made increasingly urgent requests to execute fund transfers during the calls, and the victims followed the instructions given during the calls, ultimately making 15 transfers between five local bank accounts.
The AI-generated videos were purportedly created from real online meetings in the past. To add depth and credibility to the fraud, the criminals also used WhatsApp, email, and one-on-one video conferences with Hong Kong employees.
Acting Cyber Security Division, Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau, Hong Kong Special Administrative RegionadvancedSuperintendent Chan Chun-ching said,ScamsThe perpetrators downloaded the videos in advance and then used artificial intelligence to add fake voices for video conferencing.
It is worth noting that this is not Hong KongonlyCases of fraud using deep fake technology. According to CNN, Hong Kong police revealed at a press conference last week that they had arrested six suspects related to other deep fake scams, and there have been at least 20 records of using AI deep fakes to deceive facial recognition software.
The deepfake problem also exists globally. Last week, US senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would allow victims depicted in non-consensual AI-generated pornographic deepfake videos to sue the video’s creator.
The move comes after sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral on social media platforms — on X/Twitter, they attracted tens of millions of views before the Musk-owned site blocked searches for the pop icon.
India had a similar problem last November when a relatively less explicit but still invasive AI-generated video of Indian actor Rashmika Mandanna surfaced online.India’s IT minister Rajiv Chandrasekhar reportedly warned in late January that social media platforms would be held accountable for deepfake videos posted by their users.