JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 20,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Half of finance professionals
(53%) have been attacked with deepfake scamming attempts, with 43%
admitting they have fallen victim to an attack according to new
data from Medius, a leading provider of cloud-based accounts
payable automation and spend management solutions.
85% of respondents say deepfake technology poses an existential
crisis to the business' financial security.
Ahmed Fessi, Chief Transformation & Information Officer,
explains: "Today's CEOs and CFOs have large digital footprints.
They have speeches, interviews and videos plastered across YouTube,
LinkedIn and corporate websites. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can
now use existing online audio content to create fake audio that
sounds just like business leaders. Scammers are creating fake audio
clips of CEOs and CFOs and calling the finance team asking them to
pay bogus suppliers."
When asked, the vast majority of professionals (87%) admitted
that they would make a payment if they were "called" by their CEO
or CFO to make a payment. This is concerning as more than half
(57%) of financial professionals can independently make financial
transactions without additional approval.
Yet only 40% of professionals say protecting the business from
deepfakes is a top priority. A third (33%) of employees don't feel
well educated in deepfakes. There is also little faith in
colleagues, as only 36% of professionals are very confident a
colleague would spot a deepfake fraud
attempt.
The lack of education appears true as when asked if and what
technology their business uses to protect itself against deepfakes,
only 5% knew what this technology was.
Fessi continues: "There are three important factors to prevent
falling victim to deepfake attacks. One is education: employees
should understand the threats and know how to counteract them.
Second is process. Too many businesses allow employees to make
payments without the right checks and balances. Third is
technology. AI is a force for good for finance professionals if
deployed correctly as it can spot anomalous transactions based on
large data sets."
Traditional phishing attacks involve fraudulent emails or
websites that trick individuals into divulging sensitive
information or performing unauthorized transactions. Deepfakes
elevate this deception to a new level, generating hyper-realistic
audio or video impersonations of trusted individuals (such as CEOs
or CFOs) and deceiving even the most vigilant professionals. Just
as organizations have safeguards and technology in place to protect
against and educate on phishing, it's critical that the same tools
and processes are leveraged to increase readiness to respond to
deepfake attacks.
For more information on deepfake fraud and to read
the full Financial Census report visit
https://www.medius.com/financial-census/.
For more information, please contact:
Dan Bird, Fight or Flight for Medius
Dan.Bird@fightflight.co.uk +44 7885 670798 /
Medius@fightflight.co.uk +44 330 133 0985
This information was brought to you by Cision
http://news.cision.com
https://news.cision.com/medius/r/half-of-us-and-uk-finance-professionals-hit-by-deepfake-fraud-scams,c4003619
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SOURCE Medius