Police issue advisory about recent deepfake deception based scams

Release Date: February14, 2024

AI scams are becoming more frequent, and they’re also becoming more sophisticated. In a recent scam, cybercriminals demonstrated just how convincing AI fraud can be by faking an entire video call. In fact, the scammers were able to steal over 200 million Hong Kong dollars by emailing an employee and pretending to be their organization’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

The fake CFO asked the employee to make a secret financial transaction. He initially dismissed the email as a phishing attempt. But later, he was lured into attending what he believed was a video meeting with the organization’s CFO and other employees. The meeting attendees looked and sounded exactly like coworkers that the employee recognized, but they were all deepfakes. The scammers used AI technology to create believable video and audio of the CFO. After the meeting, the employee was convinced that the financial request was genuine, and he sent the payment as requested.

AI technology is moving forward at a prolific rate. AI scams continue to become more realistic, it’s more important than ever to learn how to spot them! Follow these tips to avoid falling victim to an AI scam:

• Always be wary of requests that are being sent in an unusual way. Receiving a secret financial transfer request, even from a CFO, isn’t likely genuine!
• Trust your instincts. Immediately report any suspicious requests or emails to your organization’s security team so that they can investigate them.
• Cybercriminals typically try to get you to act impulsively. Always stop and think before taking action.

Stop, look, and think. Don’t be fooled by the scammers.