Corporate Vulnerability to AI Scams: Lessons from a $25 Million Deepfake Heist
"Seeing is believing" no longer holds true, especially on Zoom.
AI-generated fraud is society’s worst nightmare come true as you can no longer believe what you see and hear. If that doesn’t scare you it should.
Who can say no to the anguished cries of a loved one calling with an urgent need for money? The problem is that with AI, voice is a deep fake, and a scammer is making the call.
Deep fake scams aren’t limited to loved ones, and corporations need new security tools and checks to be prepared for AI scams.
A good example of a scam occurred this past February when a finance worker at the English design firm Arup in Hong Kong was duped into paying out $25 million to fraudsters who used deep fake technology to pose as the company's CFO.
This is just the beginning; scammers are the ultimate innovators and will use AI for ever darker and harder-to-detect scams.
👉TAKEAWAYS
🔹Perform proactive fraud risk assessment.
Businesses should conduct periodic and proactive fraud risk assessments to protect their organization from AI-powered fraud. Such risk assessments should start by reviewing existing processes and identifying how malicious actors can leverage GenAI to exploit the processes.
🔹Review and update the anti-fraud strategy and framework.
Businesses should update their anti-fraud policies to reflect current state realities, including defining fraud and misconduct. Each organization’s anti-fraud policy should detail examples of use cases of AI and GenAI that would constitute fraud by employees, vendors, and other stakeholders.
🔹Empower anti-fraud teams with the right skillset and tools.
Businesses should invest in building the capacity of their anti-fraud teams to deal with and respond to Ai-enabled fraud. This includes providing them with access to AI training as well as investing in the right tools for investigating AI-powered fraud.
👊STRAIGHT TALK👊
The story of the Hong Kong scammer is incredible.
The CFO was invited to a Zoom call with two or three participants, all from her institution, and each one was a deep fake!
The CFO stated that she first thought the request for transfers was a phishing scam, but the zoom call with her boss and colleagues telling her to make them convinced her to make them. How can you not feel for the CFO?
I said before that scammers are innovative, and this scam proves that they’ll go to lengths worthy of a Hollywood movie and this one had a happy ending for the scammers.
The reality is that all companies and families need new safeguards to protect themselves from deep fakes.
On a personal note, living in China and having countless hours of video footage puts me at high risk. In response, I now have a code word for financial matters that I use with my family.
I don’t think that’s going overboard in a world where what you hear or see is no longer trustworthy.
If that doesn’t scare you, it should!
Has a deepfake fooled you?
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