NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Feb 15th 2024
Massive utility scam campaign spreads via online ads
The utility scam often works by threatening and scaring victims into making poor decisions. An unpaid bill, or an offer that is too good to be true and must be accepted immediately are some of their tactics. Once you’ve made that phone call, you’re already in their hands and very close to losing a significant amount of money. Read more.
Feb 15 2024
Hackers ‘steal your face’ to create deepfakes that rob bank accounts
Group-IB researchers reported on a new hacking technique in which a threat actor uses social engineering to steal the victim’s facial recognition data to then create deepfakes to gain unauthorized access to a victim’s bank account. Read more.
Feb 11 2024
The Psychological Effects of AI Clones and Deepfakes
Concerns range from misuse to the potential impact on reputation and identity. From Psychology Today.
Feb 8th 2024
FCC votes to ban scam robocalls that use AI-generated voices
The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday it is immediately outlawing scam robocalls featuring fake, artificial intelligence-created voices, cracking down on so-called “deepfake” technology that experts say could undermine election security or supercharge fraud. Read more.
Feb 8th 2024
Deepfake Porn Is Political Violence
CARA HUNTER, A NORTHERN IRISH POLITICIAN, WAS ONLY WEEKS away from the country’s 2022 legislative elections when she received a WhatsApp message from someone she didn’t know.
The man quickly asked her if she was the woman in an explicit video — a 40-second clip that he shared with the then-24-year-old. Opening the video, Hunter was confronted with an AI-generated deepfake video of herself performing graphic sexual acts. Within days, the false clip had gone viral. Read more.
Feb 8th 2024
New Research Shows A 704% Increase In Deepfake “Face Swap” Attacks From The First To The Second Half Of 2023.
A report from biometric firm iProov warns that “face-swapping” fraudsters are increasingly using off-the-shelf tools to create manipulated images and videos. Read more.
Feb 8th 2024
The Majority Of Scams In The United Kingdom Are Traced To Meta Companies
Research shows that 60% of reported UK scams originated from just three platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The two most common types were Investment Scams, where individuals are promised “get-rich-quick” opportunities in exchange for “investing” large amounts of money, and Purchase Scams where people are conned into buying items that don’t exist or aren’t as advertised. Read More.
Feb 4th 2024
Multinational Firm Loses $25M in Elaborate Deepfake Scam Impersonating CEO and CFO
The elaborate scheme involved scammers employing advanced deepfake technology to convincingly impersonate key company figures in a video conference call, ultimately tricking an employee into making significant unauthorized transfers.
The perpetrators meticulously recreated the company’s chief financial officer and other participants, making the entire video call, except for the targeted employee, a digital fabrication. Read More.
Feb 2nd 2024
How audio-jacking using gen AI can distort live audio transactions
IBM’s Threat Intelligence team took LLM attack scenarios a step further and attempted to hijack a live conversation, replacing legitimate financial details with fraudulent instructions. All it took was three seconds of someone’s recorded voice. Read More.
Jan 29 2024
‘Mother of All Data Breaches’
26 Billion Records Leaked, Users of LinkedIn, X, Venmo And More Panic Over Increased Cybercrime Risk. Read More.
Jan 28th 2024
ByteDance Instant AI Voice Clone Sparks Fraud Concerns
ByteDance, owned by TikTok, has created powerful new software that will allow its users to instantly change their voice into another person’s using generative AI technology, and can perform real-time conversion of anyone’s voice into the cloned voice using a “single utterance of speech from the voice they are imitating. Read More.
Jan 23rd 2024
AI Will Make Scam Emails Look Genuine, UK Cybersecurity Agency Warns
The NCSC, part of the GCHQ spy agency, said in its latest assessment of AI’s impact on the cyber threats facing the UK that AI would “almost certainly” increase the volume of cyber-attacks and heighten their impact over the next two years.
Jan 26th 2024
Report Unveils Emerging AI Challenges In Financial Crime
66% of financial industry respondents perceive the use of AI by criminals as a growing cybersecurity threat, encompassing risks like deepfakes, sophisticated cyber hacks, and generative AI-driven malware. More from Insurance Business.
Jan 26th 2024
Deepfake Explicit Images Of Taylor Swift Spread On Social Media
Pornographic deepfake images of Taylor Swift are circulating online, making the singer the most famous victim of a scourge that tech platforms and anti-abuse groups have struggled to fix. Read More.
BUSINESSES ALREADY FEELING IT
Recent research found that roughly a third of all businesses have reported being victimized by deep fake voice scams and deep fake videos. And nearly half of all businesses reported falling victim to synthetic identity theft, where thieves combine real and fake ID information to create totally new and artificial identities.
A DEEP FAKE VOICE CONVERSATION COSTS BANK $35 MILLION
Three years ago, before the recent huge advancements in AI and in one of the biggest cases so far, a bank manager was fooled by a deep fake voice message into transferring $35 million to the account of a cyber crook. The scam was well planned because the crooks had previously sent fake emails to the bank, impersonating the client, and letting them know about the transfer in advance.
DEEP FAKE CEO COSTS BUSINESS QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS
A year earlier, scammers used a deepfake audio of a CEO to con $243,000 from a U.K.-based energy company. After the money had been transferred, it was forwarded to an account in Mexico and then other locations, making the identification of the fraudsters impossible.
“60 MINUTES” TEAM FOOLED WITH DEEPFAKE PASSPORT REQUEST
In 2023, a well-known security expert was able to use just a couple of seconds of staffer’s voice to trick employees at the 60 Minutes program into handing over the passport number of one of their correspondents. According to the security expert, it took less than 5 minutes to create that scam.
FAKE CELEBRITIES PROMOTE ELON MUSK INVESTMENT SCAM
In 2023, NBC News reported viewing dozens of videos using computer-manipulated images and audio of well-known celebrities including CBS News anchor Gayle King, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and HBO host Bill Maher — all falsely claiming Musk had invented a technologically advanced investment platform.
CANADIAN COUPLE LOSE NEARLY $10,000
A Canadian couple lost nearly $10,000 to scammers who used a deep fake conversation with whom they believed was their son and who claimed to have been in an accident and needed money wired urgently to pay for bail and legal bills.
THE FAMOUS TOM HANKS DENTAL PLAN FAKE
Actor Tom Hanks had to release a statement warning that the video of him promoting dental plans that was circulating on social media was a complete fake. But the fake was so good many people seemed to have a hard time telling that it wasn’t really Tom Hanks.
GAYLE KING FANS TRICKED WITH DEEPFAKE DIET PROMO
Similarly, TV host Gayle King also had to issue public statements warning her fans that a very convincing video of her promoting a new weight loss product was a deepfake that was manipulating both her face and voice. Even with the denial, many of her fans didn’t believe that it wasn’t her.
