Deepfake video scams multinational company out of $26 million: Report

A multinational company lost HK$200 million ($26 million) after scammers fooled its employees in Hong Kong with a fake group video call created using deepfake technology, according to the South China Morning Post.
 

The swindlers fabricated representations of the company’s chief financial officer and other people in the call using public footage and convinced the victim to make a total of 15 transfers to five Hong Kong bank accounts, the paper reported on Sunday, citing the city’s police.  “(In the) multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake,” senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching told the city’s public broadcaster RTHK.
 

While the victim had earlier grown suspicious after hearing that a secret transaction had to be carried out but the video call put his apprehensions to rest as everyone on the call looked and sounded like his colleagues, the victim said. The finance department of the firm received what appeared to be a phishing message purportedly from its UK-based CFO in mid-January, the paper reported. 
 

Police didn’t identify the firm or the employees.