Ferrari Executive Targeted by AI Deepfake Scam Impersonating CEO Benedetto Vigna

July 16, 2024

An AI-generated deepfake impersonating Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna was used in a fraud attempt targeting a Ferrari executive. In the scam, the perpetrator contacted the executive via WhatsApp and used a cloned voice to discuss an urgent, secretive financial deal. The executive became suspicious due to slight artificial intonations and thwarted the scam by testing the caller with a question about a recent book recommendation. This incident underscores the importance of safe and secure AI practices.

Join us in Project Cerebellum, our AI governance initiative, to help shape HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern) and prevent such harmful incidents. JOIN US

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
phishers, scammers-impersonating-benedetto-vigna, unknown-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
unnamed-ferrari-executive, benedetto-vigna, ferrari

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/966

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.