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The development of IT technology is progressing by leaps and bounds, and humanity already has artificial intelligence, which greatly assists in various fields. However, scammers have found their own application for it, using it to:
- commit monetary thefts,
- steal confidential data;
- commit fraud;
- generate voices and appearances of various people;
- imitate behavior.
To influence the victim and gain access to the information they need. The main goal of such fraud is to enrich themselves at someone else's expense.
Deepfake Fraud
Before delving into deepfake fraud, it is necessary to understand what it is. Deepfake is one of the negative traits of artificial intelligence, copying personal characteristics. Such as appearance, voice, which artificial intelligence has generated.
This method is often used by unscrupulous advertisers, making various commercials. It is also used to create greetings, supposedly from famous personalities.
Scammers have learned well to use artificial intelligence technologies, creating deceptive videos and photos for blackmail or data extraction. Criminals also often create audio deepfakes that imitate the voice of acquaintances, close ones, or relatives. For this, they call the victim and, using the voice of a familiar person, ask for a money transfer or to disclose confidential information. Most of the data for creating audio fakes scammers collect on the internet in social networks and other various sources.
By also creating fake images, scammers aim to use the generated photograph for identification to log into social media accounts or banking. Or they create fake photos for blackmail in a compromising position.
Fake Videos
There have been frequent cases of scammers creating fake videos that can be received by large companies, ordinary people, and famous personalities alike. The application of video deepfake is carried out in various directions, creating videos on which:
- relatives or acquaintances ask for financial assistance and to send money to an agreed account;
- generate commercials for fake companies featuring famous personalities;
- spread fake information in the news to misinform the public;
- often generate materials of a compromising nature, for example, with offensive remarks or intimate scenes, in most cases such deepfake is used for blackmail and extortion.
If you look closely at such videos, you can definitely spot some details that reveal the implausibility of the video and can identify that it was created using artificial intelligence. These could be:
- unnatural human movements;
- lack of blinking movements;
- unnatural facial expressions that don't match;
- lack of various facial reactions;
- unnaturally falling shadows;
- insufficiently detailed small features;
- lack of clear outlines.
Financial Crimes
Using deepfakes, scammers have learned to commit large-scale financial crimes targeting well-known corporations and large firms. Scammers can use deepfakes to convince employees of major banks or corporations to transfer large sums of money. For this, they use created videos of corporate executives.
A financial department employee is specially chosen, who has broad powers and can make large transfers. Thanks to artificial intelligence, scammers make a video call, using deepfake technology, impersonating a company executive, in very realistic conditions and with a natural voice. As a result, the employee naturally believes in the authenticity of the call and fulfills the director's request for the transfer.
Many such cases of financial fraud have been recorded worldwide, and more and more people are falling victim to modern IT technologies.
New Scam Technologies
In various directions of deception, deepfakes with individual people where relatives ask for financial help are very often encountered, which does not always work because there is an opportunity to call back, think it over, and make a decision.
Scammers have increasingly used videos that allow them to earn substantial money. As they say, made to order, of a political nature. Here, a video file with compromising material is created using artificial intelligence and posted, for example, on social networks. One such video is enough to ruin a politician's career, even if it is proven fake, the reputation is still damaged.
Deepfakes have become a fairly promising source of income for scammers, so their danger should not be underestimated. Fraudsters constantly come up with new schemes with deepfakes, actively using artificial intelligence to create fake photos and videos.
One should be cautious and not immediately believe the information received; if there is an opportunity to verify, it is better to use it.