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Last updated: July 19, 2023 at 2:37 PM IST
Police said the scam involving Radhakrishnan was the first such case of fraud in which scammers used artificial intelligence technology to fake videos. (Credits: Shutterstock)
Police said the scammers used artificial intelligence technology to create fake videos using photos of the victim’s friends and acquaintances from social media.
A man in Kerala fell victim to an AI scam and lost 40,000 rupees after he received a call from someone claiming to be his former colleague.
Radhakrishnan, a resident of Kozhikode, received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number and the person looked like one of his former colleagues in Andhra Pradesh. The person demanded 40,000 rupees from Radhakrishnan to help his relative in the hospital. However, when Radhakrishnan received another call from the same person demanding another Rs 30,000, he became suspicious and filed a complaint with the Internet Police.
According to Kerala Police Cyber Cell, this is the first such fraud case in Kerala where scammers have used AI technology to fake videos.
What is AI Deep Fake?
In order to understand deepfakes, let’s take the example of the Tom Cruise videos we’ve all come across on social media where he’s seen walking around a clothing store, showing off a coin-op trick, or biting into a lollipop.
Videos have gone viral of Barack Obama calling Donald Trump a “total jerk” or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg boasting of “total control over billions of people’s stolen data”.
The videos were fake, created using artificial intelligence to make pictures of fictional events or a different person. Deepfake is a combination of two terms – “deep learning” and “fake” and it is used to create visual content. This technology involves using artificial intelligence to map one person’s facial movements onto another person’s face in a video or audio recording.
However, deepfakes first caught attention in 2017, when it emerged that celebrities’ faces had been swapped with those of porn stars. Since then, it has been used to create misleading videos, spread disinformation, and financial fraud.
Technology has advanced to the point where deepfakes can create images that are convincing but completely fictional from scratch.
What happened in the case of WhatsApp Deepfake?
The police launched their investigation into the fraud case and traced the transaction to a private bank in Maharashtra. The bank authorities froze the account.
Police said the scammers used artificial intelligence technology to create fake videos using photos of the victim’s friends and acquaintances from social media and obtain information such as names of mutual friends from social media.
AI deepfakes are becoming increasingly popular around the world as they become more accessible and affordable.
In a similar incident from China, a fraudster used AI-powered face-swapping technology to impersonate a friend of the victim during a video call and scammed him out of $622,000.
How to be safe from AI-based Deepfakes Fraud
Here are some tricks and tips that you should be aware of in order to avoid such scams:
- Always check the authenticity of those who contact you via Whatsapp or social media.
- Do not give personal information or money to people you do not know or trust.
- If someone contacts you and asks for details or other information regarding your bank account or credit card number, do not share it.
- If the call appears to be fake or fraudulent, hang up and block the contact.
- Before transferring money, contact the person you suspect is being impersonated on another number or through other means.
- Immediately alert the police on helpline No. 1930 in case of any fraud, so that the transaction can be frozen.
How do you spot deepfakes?
Deepfakes can be completely believable, but they are always manipulated and created by artificial intelligence. There is no one way how to spot a deepfake, but there are a few ways you can do it:
- Pay attention to the face, as it may appear distorted or face-changing.
- Examine the cheeks and forehead. Deepfakes may have very smooth or very wrinkled skin.
- Find shadows where one would expect it, like under the eyes.
- Pay attention to the flashing and check if it is mechanical, too fast or too slow.
- Does the lip movement look natural because some deepfakes rely on lip syncing.
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