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In an incident earlier this month, a Ferrari executive found himself receiving unusual messages that appeared to come from the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna.
The messages came via WhatsApp, owned by Meta Inc. and suggested that a major acquisition was underway and that the executive’s assistance was needed.
The messages from Vigna had a different phone number and profile picture than usual. Despite the convincing image of the CEO wearing glasses in front of the Ferrari prancing horse logo, the executive became suspicious.
One message urged, ‘Be ready to sign the confidentiality agreement that our lawyer will send you as soon as possible,’ and mentioned that ‘the Italian market regulator and the Milan stock exchange have already been informed. Please be ready and please be discreet,’ Bloomberg reported.
It was a sophisticated attempt to use deepfake technology to infiltrate the house of the Prancing Horse. The executive realised something was wrong when he noticed slight mechanical intonations in the voice and a different phone number.
Suspicions were confirmed when the impostor failed to answer a follow-up question about a book Vigna had recently recommended to him, which caused the call to end abruptly.
This incident is part of a growing trend in the world of cybercrime. The use of deepfake scams targeting high-profile executives. ‘This year we are seeing an increase in criminals attempting to clone the voice using artificial intelligence,’ said Rachel Tobac, CEO of cybersecurity training company SocialProof Security.
Although deepfake technology has not yet caused widespread deception, significant losses have occurred. A Hong Kong-based multinational was swindled out of $26 million earlier this year through deepfake technology.
‘It is only a matter of time before these AI-based deepfake tools become incredibly accurate,’ warned Stefano Zanero, professor of computer security at the Politecnico di Milano.
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