For being so advanced, the technology ends up serving not only goods, but also greater evils. Through deepfake technology, a group of thieves was able to steal 35 million dollars from a bank by faking the voice of a company executive.
The case is real and it happened in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020.
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Deepfake technology has become highly sophisticated, allowing it to confuse the less attentive. The former consists of the manipulation of images and sounds, in order to put “words in the mouth of those who never said them or actions in the body of those who never performed them”, according to the Visão. So, because they are very credible, some people use them for dubious purposes.
An example of this was the UAE bank robbery in early 2020. According to a report by Forbes, which is based on recently released documents, the fraudsters copied the voice of a company executive, using deepfake technology, to deceive the bank manager into transferring the 35 million dollars.
The executive’s voice told the bank that the company was going to make an acquisition and therefore needed the money to guarantee it. Recognizing his voice, the bank manager authorized the transfer, which sent the millionaire amount to the criminals’ account.
Now, the UAE is enlisting the help of US investigators to locate nearly $400,000 that has been transferred to US accounts, according to the same report. Dubai investigators believe the operation involved at least 17 people and, through deepfake technology, sent money to various banks around the world.
As early as 2019, according to The Wall Street Journal, the perpetrators of a robbery turned to AI to copy an executive’s voice, with the aim of stealing $243,000.
While it seems a worrisome reality, in fact, the more refined deepfake technology gets, the more watchful regulators will be and the more ways to detect it will emerge.
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