What are digital arrests, the newest deepfake tool used by cybercriminals?
An Indian textile baron claims that an online con artist who used him to defraud federal investigators and even the Supreme Court justice extorted him for 70 million rupees (833, 000).
On August 28th, the phony agents from India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) called SP Oswal, the managing director of Vardhman, and charged him with money laundering.
Oswal was questioned and threatened with arrest for the following two days as he was ordered to keep Skype open on his phone 24/7. Additionally, the fraudsters staged a fictitious virtual court hearing in the presence of DY Chandrachud, the chief justice of India.
Oswal, who had just been defrauded online using a new tactic known as “digital arrest,” forgot to pay the sum after the court’s verdict via Skype, not realizing that he had just recently fallen for the scam.
What are digital arrests, and what steps are necessary to stop them?
What exactly is a digital arrest?
A new type of online fraud, known as “digital arrest,” involves tricking victims into staying connected with the scammer using video-conferencing software. The fraudsters then trick their victims into keeping a constant stream of video transmission, holding them in tact as a result of their deception.
Similar to phishing, a digital arrest, is a type of cyber-attack that involves tricking individuals into revealing sensitive information that may involve identity theft, financial loss, or stealing data for malicious purposes. With the development of AI-generated audio and video, the techniques have advanced more.
A hacker uses a legitimate organization or person to trick a person or company into giving them sensitive information in a cyberattack known as phishing.
The scammer will make the victim feel like they are “here to help,” whether it be financially or legally. Many victims are pressured or coerced into following the scammer’s instructions and lowering their guard.
The use of video-conferencing software is what makes many of these scams appear to be legitimate. The majority of scams don’t involve a face, and most of them can be resolved by phone. A person using sophisticated deepfake video technology can appear as a completely different – and frequently real – participant in the video call using video-conferencing software.
Moreover, with a snippet of audio, perhaps from a judge or high-level police officer, an audio AI engine can replicate a person’s voice, which can then be used by the scammer.
“‘ This is just a newfangled spear-phishing, is the way I would put it, because it’s highly targeted and it shows far greater awareness of the victim’s circumstances than the old phishing, where some prince from somewhere says he needed to send money to the US and somehow, you’re the only way he can do it”, VS Subrahmanian, professor of computer science at Northwestern University, told Al Jazeera.
There are words for these because the phishing scams have become much more sophisticated. Vishing is video phishing, phishing is fishing through SMS”.
What is known about the SP Oswal case? Have other digital arrests happened?
An anonymous caller allegedly claimed there were financial irregularities in one of Oswal’s bank accounts while claiming that his account was connected to a case against former Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal, who was detained in September of this year for laundering $64 million, in an interview with NDTV New.
After issuing fake arrest warrants and fake Supreme Court documents stipulating the alleged amount owed, the fraudsters were able to persuade Oswal to pay $833, 000 to a specific bank account.
Following the incident, Oswal complained to the neighborhood police. With help from cybercrime officials, Oswal was able to recover $630, 000 of the $833, 000. This is the largest recovery in India for a case of this nature, according to local police.
Oswal is just the latest victim to fall under the phishing scam, but in India, digital arrests have increased significantly in recent years. After many services went online as a result of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of many of these digital arrests began in the year 2020.
Following a digital arrest, an employee who works for the Department of Atomic Energy’s Raja Ramanna Advanced Technology Center (RRCAT) was defrauded of 7.1 million rupees (approximately $86, 000) last month.
After being accused of trafficking fake passports, fake ATM cards, and illegal drugs, a senior official from the National Buildings Construction Corporation was duped of 5.5 million rupees (approximately $66, 000) in another incident last month.
Why are sophisticated deepfake AI video scams growing?
Due to the rapid growth of machine learning and various AI tools, deepfakes have become more common and sophisticated since 2015. Deepfakes have been used for fraudulent schemes since 2015.
A fraudster can use a deepfake AI multimedia stream to pose as the person in a video conference call like Zoom, Skype, or Teams, and embed anyone in a video or photo with the help of a fake AI stream. Unless the host of the call has anti-deepfake software, the deepfake can be hard to spot.
In a March 2019 article from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), fraudsters defrauded the CEO of a UK-based energy company of 220, 000 euros ($243, 000).
To replicate various speech patterns, emotions, and accents of the subject, some deepfake software only needs ten seconds of audio. The voice pitch and natural pauses, inflexion of some letters, and voice pitch are even taken into account by AI voice software, rendering the imitation virtually indistinguishable from the audio that is actually coming from the real person.
In a videoconference call with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, a caller posed as former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, according to a New York Times article.
Although there was no monetary fraud, there are still chances that dishonest politicians could influence important political decisions regarding results of high-stakes foreign policy initiatives or political elections.
According to Subrahmanian, a professor from Northwestern University, the incidence of digital arrests has been reported in various nations around the world, but this scam is more prevalent in India because there isn’t enough information about deep-fakes there.
In addition, Subrahmanian said a significant part of India’s population operates exclusively on their mobile phones. “They think of the phone as something that they should trust, which provides good information. Therefore, they don’t necessarily have a distrust of a call like this when they do.
He added that cybersecurity hasn’t been taken seriously by India’s telecom industry.
How can this be stopped?
generative adversarial networks (GANs), a type of artificial intelligence (AI) model, is used to create the majority of deepfake software. These GANs often leave a unique “artefact” behind in the deepfake.
These artefacts can be identified by the deepfake detection system. A deepfake detection system can identify these artefacts in the audio.
As deepfake technology becomes more sophisticated, the detection systems will have to move in step with these innovations.
However, Subrahmanian suggested relying only on deepfake-detection software is not enough. There will need to be awareness-building about these deepfake technologies, and possibly a global initiative, similar to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law enacted by the European Union.
“One is to make use of already-existing agreements. Regardless of whether these scams are based on financial fraud caused by generative AI or another method, Interpol can issue warrants for those who are engaging in transnational fraud, as an example.
