Cyber Criminals Have Defrauded Companies with Deepfakes

In March, cyber criminals defrauded an unnamed British energy company using deepfake technology. They mimicked the CEO’s voice and requested a $243,000 wire “to a Hungarian supplier,” the WSJ reported. You may think you wouldn’t be fooled, but just imagine receiving an order from what sounds like your boss’s boss’s boss.

This isn’t the first time AI-generated audio has tricked a financial controller. Security firm Symantec has detected three successful cases of deepfaked CEO audio that cost companies millions, the BBC reported in July.

What’s driving this?

1. Deepfake tech is being commoditized.
2. As public figures, CEOs produce ample audiovisual content on earnings calls and Ted Talks. With so much training data, deepfake algorithms can conjure up realistic imitations.

For public companies, the technology could have serious “potential credit impact,” since “people are not yet used to being able to discern and debunk deepfakes,” Moody’s Cyber Risk Analyst Leroy Terrelonge told me.

+ While we’re here: Zao, a new viral app in China, lets users faceswap themselves into movie scenes with a single selfie.