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When your voice is being ‘cloned’ to dupe banks
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Scammers are trying to trick bankers into sending them money by using artificial intelligence that imitates the voices of bank clients.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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A Bank of America employee in Florida recently received two phone calls from investor Clive Kabatznik to discuss a big money transfer he was planning to make. The scary part was that the second phone call wasn’t made by Mr Kabatznik. Rather, a software program had artificially generated his voice and tried to trick the banker into moving the money elsewhere.
Cyber-security experts are bewildered as to how the scammers were able to replicate his voice, pick the correct bank to call and at the most opportune time as well. What is certain is that Mr Kabatznik and his banker were the targets of a cutting-edge scam attempt that has sent shockwaves through the financial community – the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate voice deepfakes, or vocal renditions that mimic real people’s voices.
