Yet another deepfake scam, and other tech stories you may have missed

A cyber incident making headlines involves yet another deepfake scheme. Password application LastPass has alerted the public of fraudulent calls from individuals posing as employers using deepfake audio after the company was hit with such an attack. The infiltrator created a WhatsApp account and contacted a LastPass employee pretending to be the CEO, Karim Toubba. Among the communications was a “forced urgency” message with the goal of coercing the employee. In this case, it was flagged right away, and the employee immediately reported the situation. Afterward, LastPass posted a warning on its website about the “proliferation of ‘deepfake’ technology.” No damages were incurred by the attempt. (Source: PCMag)

Why this is important for your firm and clients: It’s not comforting that deepfake scammers are focusing on software vault companies like LastPass. But it is comforting to know that there are employees who can identify these types of scams. Yes, deepfake scams will continue to proliferate and become more and more discernible from real messages. But in the end it’s the human who has to let the bad actors in, and the more we ensure that our employees are trained and aware the more protected we’ll be.