Computer generated ‘people’ with faces which look like real people are old hat. Now, scammers are apparently using artificial intelligence technology in ‘the audio deepfake scam.’ Hackers use machine learning to clone someone’s voice and then combine that voice clone with social engineering techniques to convince people to move money where it shouldn’t be. The first audio deepfake scam took place in 2019, when the chief executive of a UK energy firm was tricked into sending $240,000 to a Hungarian supplier after receiving a phone call supposedly from the CEO of his company’s parent firm in Germany. The executive was told that the transfer was urgent and the funds had to be sent within the hour. He did so. The attackers were never caught.

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