Billionaire Almost Defrauded by AI Voice Clone in Dubai: Staff Prevents Major Financial Loss

A number of examples are cited in the literature; most recently, Indian billionaire, and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, Sunil Bharti Mittal narrated how his company nearly lost millions of dollars to an AI-powered scam in Dubai. In the incident, Mittal created an AI clone of his voice and used it to con a senior executive at the firm into releasing a major amount of cash.

Mittal himself once narrated the incident during the NDTV World Summit where he said that the fraudster had even mastered his voice. It was almost perfect and Mittal froze when he listened to the recording of the impersonation. For instance, one of my senior finance executives in Dubai, who oversees our operations in Africa, was given a call in my voice, ordering him to start a big transfer. Luckily he had the presence of mind to report the call to me telling me that I was the sort who wouldn’t ask such a thing over the telephone, said Mittal.

Needless to say, this case unveils the problem of AI and deepfake technology misusage in increasing, which attracts people’s attention globally. The UAE Cyber Security Council has put alerts about deepfakes more closely as they could result in fraud, breach of privacy or spread of false information. The Council has also embarked on an awareness campaign in which persons are encouraged to check the credibility of information received in digital platform before sharing to their counterparts.

Kaspersky survey showed that despite the fact 75% of the UAE employee believed they could recognize a deepfake, only 37% were actually able to distinguish between the real and AI picture. Dmitry Anikin, Kaspersky’s senior data scientist, echoed the paen, saying that menace, explained that people must remain alert since cybercriminals are now using deepfake technology to rustle staffers as executives and perpetrate frauds.

This means as deepfake scams evolve with the help of AI technology firms are encouraged to be more careful and tighten up their security measures.