Phishing, cloned voices, fake bosses: when AI works for fraudsters
Spelling mistakes will no longer save you
For years, people learned to spot a fraudulent email by its glaring mistakes and clumsy wording. Those days are over: AI tools now let any fraudster write a perfect message, in the target's language, imitating the tone of a supplier or a colleague. And it no longer stops at email.
Three rising threats
1. Personalised phishing
The fraudster gathers what is public (website, LinkedIn, the company's Facebook page) and generates a tailor-made email: "Following our conversation on Tuesday about the Gosselies site, here is the updated invoice". The link leads to a fake Microsoft 365 sign-in page, and the account is compromised.
2. The cloned voice
A few seconds of recording are now enough to imitate a voice convincingly — a public video or a voicemail will do. The classic scenario: the accountant receives a call "from the boss", in a hurry, from an unknown number: an urgent transfer must go out before noon to a foreign supplier.
3. The doctored video call
Rarer but documented: video meetings where one or more participants are deepfakes. Companies have already lost considerable sums this way.
Seven simple, effective measures
- A dual-approval procedure for any unusual transfer or any change to a supplier's bank account number — through another channel, at a known number.
- An internal code word for urgent requests made by phone.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) on every email and cloud account, without exception.
- Offline backups: if the worst happens (ransomware), that is what saves the business — see our backup guide.
- Properly configured email filtering (SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your own domain, so that it cannot easily be spoofed).
- Systematic updates of workstations, servers and network equipment.
- Regular awareness training for staff, with concrete and recent examples — half an hour per quarter is better than a full day every five years.
The right reflex when faced with an urgent request
Urgency is the fraudster's main weapon. Any request that combines urgency + money + an unusual channel deserves to be checked, whoever appears to be making it.
What if it has already happened?
Disconnect the affected computer from the network (without switching it off), change passwords from another device, notify your bank immediately if a transfer has been made, and call in a professional. We regularly handle incident response, including after ransomware attacks: the faster the intervention, the more limited the damage.