Have you reckon that in the past months more and more articles report: Voice impersonation software is being used by fraudsters to call our bank using our name. What's more, they use the latest deepfake tools, which are currently almost impossible to defend against.
Deepfake is a technology that uses artificial intelligence to alter a person's characteristics to make them appear to be someone else or do something they would not otherwise have done. The key of this fraud-method is to generate synthetic media, a hyper-realistic replica of a person - a fake that has no proof of its own.
A recent incident: The New York Times recently reported on a case where an investor in Florida spoke to a bank teller over the phone about a large transfer of money. They discussed the matter, everything went fine until the teller received another call, only the second call was not from the customer, the scammers used AI-based software to mimic his voice and try to get the banker to transfer the money elsewhere. The bank teller was suspicious and did not modify the transaction.
This is an actual example of a modern high-tech scam using artificial intelligence to create fake audio samples that imitate the voices of real people.
Technology Boom, Falling Costs and Rapid Spread
Voice impersonation scams using artificial intelligence could become more common in the future, because good quality software is available - some even for free - and the technology is constantly evolving.
The most threathened are the well-known, wealthier people, who have plenty of public recordings available on the internet, such as speeches and interviews, which criminals can easily use to create voice-over material.
Of course, it is not true that everyone else can sit back, because using a recording of a previous phone conversation or a social networking site can easily be used to defraud almost anyone, and it is not just the elderly who are at risk, but also younger customers. Not only can they call the financial institution on our behalf, but they can also call elderly relatives using voice impersonation software, and easily swindle large sums of money from them.
Be it banking, insurance or customer care, online administration is convenient, yet the well-established authentication processes can no longer grant that your data and identity is in safe hands, but who can then? Stay tuned to find out.
