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Fabricated Voice Used in Financial Fraud

posted by janrinok on Friday September 13 2019, @01:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the attack-of-the-mimic dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fraudsters-use-ai-to-mimic-ceos-voice-in-unusual-cybercrime-case-11567157402

Criminals used artificial intelligence-based software to impersonate a chief executive's voice and demand a fraudulent transfer of €220,000 ($243,000) in March in what cybercrime experts described as an unusual case of artificial intelligence being used in hacking.

The CEO of a U.K.-based energy firm thought he was speaking on the phone with his boss, the chief executive of the firm's German parent company, who asked him to send the funds to a Hungarian supplier. The caller said the request was urgent, directing the executive to pay within an hour, according to the company's insurance firm, Euler Hermes Group SA.

Euler Hermes declined to name the victim companies.

Law enforcement authorities and AI experts have predicted that criminals would use AI to automate cyberattacks. Whoever was behind this incident appears to have used AI-based software to successfully mimic the German executive's voice by phone. The U.K. CEO recognized his boss' slight German accent and the melody of his voice on the phone, said Rüdiger Kirsch, a fraud expert at Euler Hermes, a subsidiary of Munich-based financial services company Allianz SE.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @06:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @06:23PM (#893787)

    From the summary: "The CEO of a U.K.-based energy firm thought he was speaking on the phone with his boss, the chief executive of the firm's German parent company"

    So can you remind me why you are bringing up "GOP Jeebus?"

    Also, you are correct. In a sane world, it is a bad idea to do a major financial transaction just because you got a phone call from somebody asking for an urgent request; that's why most companies have a policy to not do that. It sounds like that number of companies just increased by one.