Friday, September 13, 2019

Forget email: Scammers use CEO voice 'deepfakes' to con workers into wiring cash - Liam Tung, ZDNet

AI-generated audio was used to trick a CEO into wiring $243,000 to a scammer's bank account. The Wall Street Journal reports that the CEO of an unnamed UK-based energy company thought he was talking on the phone with his boss, the CEO of the German parent company, who'd asked him to urgently transfer €220,000 ($243,000) to a Hungarian supplier. However, the UK CEO was in fact taking instructions from a scammer who'd used AI-powered voice technology to impersonate the German CEO. The UK-based CEO became suspicious when the fraudster called a third time requesting a second transfer and noticed the call was from an Austrian number.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/forget-email-scammers-use-ceo-voice-deepfakes-to-con-workers-into-wiring-cash/