Cyber criminals using AI deepfake videos to cheat people of crores

Cyber criminals are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence to carry out sophisticated frauds through deepfake videos, scam calls and phishing attacks. Telangana Cyber Security Bureau officials warn people to verify financial schemes carefully as AI-driven cyber crimes continue to increase.

Hyderabad: Cyber attacks are getting faster, more personalised and harder to detect, with cyber criminals increasingly deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate, scale and enhance attacks, including phishing, deepfakes, malware and social engineering.

Consider this case. Cyber fraudsters looted people of crores of rupees by using fake AI-generated videos of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The fraudsters using artificial intelligence created realistic fake videos that showed the minister speaking about government-backed financial assistance schemes. The AI-created videos were circulated on social media platforms and many people filed online applications and transferred money towards processing fees believing them to be genuine.

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“Cases involving AI-generated videos are increasing day by day. Cyber fraudsters adopt new modus operandi to cheat people and it is necessary to double-verify before believing in any financial schemes or offers circulating online. Use of AI for conning people is a new modus operandi,” said an official of the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau.

Cyber fraudsters are also targeting businesses and individuals using AI-generated video calls to get funds transferred into their accounts. “Criminals use AI to create lifelike audio and video impersonations of executives or family members. These deepfakes can be used in real-time video calls to trick victims into transferring money or revealing sensitive information. Such frauds are reported in many countries across the world,” said the official.

AI is also used to target individuals including high-profile personalities such as actors, sportsmen and politicians. Last year, actor Chiranjeevi had lodged a complaint with the Hyderabad cyber crime police after AI-generated deepfake videos featuring him in obscene content surfaced on pornographic platforms and other websites.

While cyber criminals for long have been adopting AI for crafting emails, messages and creating websites to target people, they are also using the tool for running scam call centres and to produce phishing kits, malware and social engineering content on a large scale to target unsuspecting victims.