Maharashtra Cyber Department has issued an alert for citizens warning them about deep fake scams wherein the scammers use artificial intelligence (Al) to create highly realistic fake video or audio, impersonating high-profile individuals such as CEOs or celebrities. By presenting urgent or unusual requests, the scammers deceive victims into making financial transfers or disclosing sensitive information, exploiting the trust and authority of the impersonated figures, the alert stated.
"The scammers use social media profiles and other websites to take videos, photos, and other information and by using these information, they create realistic, deep fakes of a real voice and videos of people's friends or family, make fake kidnappings, and make ransom calls seem legitimate for the sake of financial gain. Scammers create a sense of urgency and seriousness about the situation to make the victims act quickly and ask for money in the form of gift cards, or cryptocurrency," said an official.
"One should block profiles from public searches, never accept friend requests from unknown persons and keep the privacy settings of their social media profile at the most restricted levels, especially for the public and others. One should also apply maximum caution while sharing videos, photographs, status updates, comments, etc. These may together reveal enough information about users. Avoid impulsive reactions, and always think calmly before reacting to sensitive or suspicious calls, messages, emails, etc. Report cyber crimes immediately by calling 1930 or visit https://www.cybercrime.gov.in," the official said.
In April this year, a 68-year-old businessman from Powai had fallen prey to an AI voice cloning scam and ended up losing Rs 80,000. The scam involved a fake call, purportedly from the Indian Embassy in Dubai, falsely claiming that the businessman's son was arrested and was jailed. The scammer had even played the cloned voice of the victim's son in order to gain the victim's trust.
