Top British multinational design and engineering firm Arup fell victim to an elaborate deepfake video scam after an employee at the company’s Hong Kong office was tricked into transferring millions of dollars to unknown fraudsters over a video conference call.

The employee, who was contacted purportedly by the firm’s chief financial officer at their London headquarters to execute confidential transactions, was initially suspicious about the message. However, a video conference call, which featured the CFO and several other employees, all digitally cloned by the scammers, convinced the Hong Kong office staff member about the authenticity of the request. He subsequently transferred HK$ 200 million (about A$ 39 million) in 15 transactions to five Hong Kong bank accounts.

The scam was discovered when the employee contacted Arup’s London headquarters, following which the firm notified the Hong Kong police about the fraud.

In a statement to the Financial Times, Arup says, “We can confirm that fake voices and images were used. Our financial stability and business operations were not affected and none of our internal systems were compromised.”

The Arup incident is said to be one of the biggest deepfake scams in the world. Employing artificial intelligence, deepfake scams typically use publicly available videos, images and recordings to impersonate real people and commit financial fraud, spread misinformation and even threaten blackmail.

Image: https://hai.stanford.edu/news/using-ai-detect-seemingly-perfect-deep-fake-videos