Deepfake Scam A multinational company was scammed out of $25.6 million by hackers who fooled employees at the company’s Hong Kong branch into believing their digital recreation of its chief financial officer — as well as several other video conference participants — were real. The hack, believed to be the first of its kind, highlights just how far deepfake technology has progressed. As the South China Morning Post reports, scammers are believed to have used publicly available footage to create deepfake representations of the staff. Some of the fake video calls apparently only had a single human on the line, with the rest being deepfakes created by the hackers. “This time, in a multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone you see is fake,” senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching told the SCMP. Money Men A finance department employee was tricked into believing that a secret transaction had to be made, beginning with a phishing message in mid-January. Despite at first being doubtful, the employee attended a group video call that featured the deepfake versions of the company’s CFO, as well as other staff — who reportedly looked and sounded like their real-life counterparts. “They used deepfake technology to imitate the voice of their targets reading from a script,” Chan told the SCMP. Unsurprisingly, the employee didn’t really interact with the deepfake avatars and was only asked to introduce themselves. According to Chan, two to three employees were targeted by the scammers. At least one other employee also attended an…Hackers Steal $25 Million by Deepfaking Finance Boss