Fraudsters clone CEO voice to steal USD 243,000 from UK energy firm
Date: 2019-03
Affected: UK energy company (German subsidiary)
Attack vector: deepfake
Category: real-world
Severity: High

The CEO of the German subsidiary of a UK-based energy company was impersonated by attackers using deepfake audio of his voice on a phone call, with the resulting wire transfer of EUR 220,000 (USD 243,000) routed through Hungary and Mexico. This was widely cited as the first publicly reported AI-voice-clone BEC fraud.


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):