Giant British Company Becomes Victim of Deepfake Fraud, Losses Reach IDR 400 Billion

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – A British multinational design and engineering company, Arup, announced it had been the target of a fake scam. The fraudster managed to make off with up to billions of rupiah.

Unmitigated, the losses caused by this incident reached USD 25 million or around IDR 400 billion.

Quoted from CNN InternationalFriday (17/5/2024), one of the company's spokespersons said it had notified the Hong Kong police in January about the fraud incident.

They then confirmed that the fraud used deepfake technology which was able to imitate the voices and images of important officials at Arup.

“Unfortunately, we cannot explain in detail at this time because the incident is still under investigation. “However, we can confirm that fake sounds and images were used,” the spokesperson said.

Even though he had been cheated out of billions of rupiah, an Arup spokesperson said that the company's financial condition and systems were still safe.

“Our financial stability and business operations were not affected and none of our internal systems were compromised,” an Arup spokesperson added.

According to Hong Kong police, this artificial intelligence fraud caused employees to comply with the perpetrator's wishes to attend video calls with people posing as CFOs and other staff members,

“However, the person who attended the video call was a fraudster who used deepfake AI,” Hong Kong police said in February.

For your information, the British company (Arup) is a design company that has helped build various iconic buildings, such as the Sydney Opera House.

Netizens' questions regarding fraud methods via APKs using voice notes on WhatsApp have gone viral. This question was posted on the Twitter account @tanakanrl