AI voice deepfake CEO fraud — Hong Kong $25M loss
Date: 2024-02
Affected: Multinational company finance employee, Hong Kong office — HKD 200 million (~USD 25.6M) transferred to attacker-controlled accounts
Attack vector: deepfake
Category: real-world
Severity: Critical

A finance employee at a Hong Kong-based multinational company was tricked into transferring HKD 200 million (~USD 25.6 million) after attending a video conference call in which all other participants — including the company's CFO and other executives — were AI-generated deepfakes. The employee initially suspected a phishing email but was reassured by the apparent live video conference with known colleagues. Investigators determined the attackers used publicly available video and audio of the executives to generate real-time deepfake avatars and voice synthesis. The Hong Kong police confirmed the case in February 2024 as the largest known AI deepfake fraud case. The employee followed the CFO's instructions to make 15 transfers to five bank accounts.

Impact: Largest confirmed AI deepfake financial fraud; USD 25.6M loss; demonstrates that real-time multimodal AI synthesis has reached a level where live video identity verification is no longer reliable without cryptographic controls

Mitigations:
Out-of-band verification for financial transfers above threshold — phone callback to known number, not video call
Cryptographic identity verification for high-stakes video communications (e.g. signed video calls)
Multi-person approval required for large wire transfers, not single-employee authorization
Employee training: treat video conference requests for unusual financial actions with heightened suspicion
Deepfake detection tools at video conferencing infrastructure level

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):
label: Foundation Models
notes: Foundation model used for audio/video synthesis — multimodal generation capability weaponised for real-time impersonation
role: origin
label: Deployment & Infrastructure
notes: Deployment in real-time video conferencing infrastructure bypassed human identity verification
role: impact
label: Security & Compliance
notes: No deepfake detection or cryptographic identity verification at organisational level
role: blind-spot
label: Evaluation & Observability
notes: No anomaly detection on unusual financial request via video call channel
role: blind-spot