A finance professional in Hong Kong was tricked into transferring $25 million of company funds after scammers used deepfakes to impersonate their London-based CFO on a video call. The fake CFO made urgent requests for money transfers, which the victim complied with after initially being suspicious but being reassured by other "colleagues" also on the call. Police believe the deepfakes were created using recordings of past genuine online conferences to seem more authentic. Deepfakes are becoming a rising scam and fraud threat as AI skills advance and incentives increase, moving past earlier reliance on simpler phishing tricks.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 It's Benzinga and here's what's on the block.
00:02 Finance professional in Hong Kong was tricked into transferring $25 million of company funds
00:08 after scammers used deepfakes to impersonate their London-based CFO on a video call.
00:14 The fake CFO made urgent requests for money transfers, which the victim complied with
00:18 after initially being suspicious about being reassured by other colleagues also on the
00:22 call.
00:23 Police believe the deepfakes were created using recordings of past genuine online conferences
00:27 to seem more authentic.
00:29 Deepfakes are becoming a rising scam and fraud threat as AI skills advance and incentives
00:34 increase, moving past earlier reliance on simpler phishing tricks.
00:38 A bipartisan bill introduced last week by US senators aims to give victims of non-consensual
00:43 AI-generated pornographic deepfakes the right to sue the creators of such videos.
00:48 For all things money, visit Benzinga.com.
00:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]