It is a wonder day when AI also controls your money - $25 million gone

[Rick Law]

I suppose it is going to happen some time, some where, now and again...

"CNN  — A finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into paying out $25 million to fraudsters using deepfake technology to pose as the company’s chief financial officer in a video conference call ...
... multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake ...
... Believing everyone else on the call was real, the worker agreed to remit a total of $200 million Hong Kong dollars – about $25.6 million, the police officer added ...
... At the press briefing Friday, Hong Kong police said they had made six arrests in connection with such scams ..."

Original CNN article link:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html

[ataradov]

This is a process issue. A single person signing off on a significant transfer of money based on a verbal communication only is always going to be exploitable.

[tom66]

Quite impressive that it was pulled off.  I guess the video conference aspect means you might get away with more of the uncanny valley stuff as you could lower the bitrate and create random drop outs to make it more convincing.

[ataradov]

There is also a chance that it was an inside job. The dude provided all the information to create the fake call, then transferred the money. Next he is fired and is chilling on the beach with his share of the $25m.

[Bud]

The CNN story itself is a deep fake.
How do you know it is not?

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, actually, how do we know that our presidents are not themselves deep fakes? Because they sure look like ones.

[Bud]

When you see them on TV they very much can be.

[SiliconWizard]

And with that said, as always, the thing to be scared about currently is not AI becoming independent and controlling you, but people controlling AI controlling you. This is a very real concern, and already happening.

[EEVblog]

Welcome to 2024

[EPAIII]

What next?

[SiliconWizard]

What next?

Do you really want to know?

[Rick Law]

We already have people on-line who use filter to change how they appear in dating and social media sites^[1].  Moving to directly swindle money from the banks is but a small step.

Incidences like this may actually be a good thing for now.  More people need to know that "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog."^[2].

We are removing our direct interpersonal interaction and replaced them with virtual interactions.  That there is a real person at the other end or not becomes less distinguishable.  We are getting closer to living in the The Matrix every day.  More people need to understand the danger of virtualization everyone else's existence is not a good thing.

Footnote:

[1] "Fake Woman" as reported in this youtube video by SERPENTZA


[2] On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog}

[tszaboo]

This is a process issue. A single person signing off on a significant transfer of money based on a verbal communication only is always going to be exploitable.

Yes, if this was a real company, this one employee would have access to the crypto seed containing an entire exchange's all clients crypto, and that would be stolen. This is just regular old wire fraud. They used AI, but probably a postit note on his desk would have been enough.