Criminals are using deepfakes to impersonate CEOs
Criminals are
using deepfakes to impersonate CEOs
But deepfakes are now moving past the porn realm and into the criminal
world where bad actors are using the tech to impersonate CEOs, Axios reports.
However, for now, it appears criminals are using deepfake audio instead of
video to pull off scams:
·
Symantec, a major cybersecurity company, says it has seen three
successful audio attacks on private companies. In each, a company’s “CEO”
called a senior financial officer to request an urgent money transfer.
·
Scammers were mimicking the CEOs’ voices with an AI program that
had been trained on hours of their speech—culled from earnings calls, YouTube
videos, TED talks, and the like.
·
Millions of dollars were stolen from each company, whose names
were not revealed. The attacks were first reported in the BBC.
The threat deepfake audio poses to businesses cannot be understated.
While someone using deepfake audio to pretend they’re the CEO of a company and
getting that company’s accounting department to wire them $1 million because of
an “emergency” is one thing, the
tech could also be used for sabotage. What if one rival–or even a
nation-state–wanted to sink Apple’s stock price? A well-timed deepfake audio
clip that purports to show Tim Cook having a private conversation with someone
about iPhone sales tanking could do just that–wiping billions off the stock
market in seconds.
And unfortunately, right now there just aren’t reliable tools to easily
and automatically identify deepfake media on the web. By the time a deepfake
video or audio recording has been debunked, the damage could already be done.
If you want to see a deepfake in action, check out the one of President
Obama, voiced by Jordan Peel, below.
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