The Wall Street Journal reported an interesting case: fraudsters used a deepfake voice to impersonate the head of an unidentified German company during a phone call. On the phone, the fake CEO, whose voice had been simulated using Amnesty International, asked the manager of an unidentified British subsidiary to urgently transfer 220,000 euros to the account of a Hungarian supplier, although that account actually belonged to criminals.
This case was made public thanks to the insurance company Euler Hermes Group, which was investigating the incident. According to the insurance company’s experts, the fraudsters used commercial software available on the market to create the fakes. The head of the British company suspected a trap when the “German leader” called for the third time and requested a second transfer, but the call had come from an Austrian number. Unfortunately, by that time the first transfer had already been sent and had been credited to the account in Hungary, from where the funds were then transferred to Mexico.
Interestingly, this is not the first time a Deepfake voice has been used in this way. In July of this year, the BBC reported that Symantec experts had discovered three similar cases in which AI technology was used to simulate the voices of CEOs. Because of these fakes, anonymous victim companies lost millions of dollars.
Even at that time, experts warned that business leaders could be an easy target for fraud and the creation of counterfeit voices. The fact is that samples of their voices can easily be found in speeches in the media and at conferences, in YouTube videos, and so on.
