{"id":741469,"date":"2024-05-20T10:04:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T09:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=741469"},"modified":"2024-05-21T08:32:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T07:32:21","slug":"arup-falls-victim-to-20m-deepfake-video-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/arup-falls-victim-to-20m-deepfake-video-scam","title":{"rendered":"Arup falls victim to \u00a320m deepfake video scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hong Kong-based employee at the London-headquartered international engineering and design firm was tricked into sending HK$200m (\u00a320 million) to cyber criminals by the fraudulent video call.<\/p>\n

The criminals used video content generated by artificial intelligence to pose as senior company members using fake images and voices, the Financial Times<\/em> (FT) reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Hong Kong police launched an investigation in February, following a report from a staff member of the then-unnamed company on 29 January.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Hong Kong police said the employee had \u2018received video conference calls from someone posing as senior officers of the company requesting to transfer money to designated bank accounts\u2019.<\/p>\n

The police force confirmed the case was being handled by its cybercrime unit, after being classified as \u2018obtaining property by deception\u2019.<\/p>\n

Arup, which employs more than 18,000 people worldwide and more than 50 ARB-qualified architects in the UK, confirmed it was the company involved in a statement.<\/p>\n

The AJ100<\/a> company said it had notified the police about the incident at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

Arup confirmed to the FT that fake voices and images were used to produce the fraudulent call, but declined to give further details due to the ongoing investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the company added: ‘Our financial stability and business operations were not affected and none of our internal systems were compromised.’<\/p>\n

Rob Greig, Arup\u2019s global chief information officer, said: \u2018Like many other businesses around the globe, our operations are subject to regular attacks, including invoice fraud, phishing scams, WhatsApp voice spoofing and deepfakes.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, Greig said the frequency and sophistication of the attacks had risen sharply in recent months.<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018I hope our experience can help raise awareness of the increasing sophistication and evolving techniques of bad actors.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Hong Kong-based employee at the London-headquartered international engineering and design firm was tricked into sending HK$200m (\u00a320 million) to cyber criminals by the fraudulent video call. The criminals used video content generated by artificial intelligence to pose as senior company members using fake images and voices, the Financial Times (FT) reported. Hong Kong police …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138919,"featured_media":741516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[681],"tags":[100464,93810,1959,45732,2254],"yoast_head":"\nArup falls victim to \u00a320m deepfake video scam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Arup has confirmed it was the victim of a \u00a320 million AI deepfake fraud earlier this year\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/arup-falls-victim-to-20m-deepfake-video-scam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arup falls victim to \u00a320m deepfake video scam\" \/>\n<meta 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