This One Question Saved Ferrari from a Major Deepfake Scam: ‘I Need to Identify You’

The Ferrari NV executive began receiving unexpected messages, apparently from the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna. One message read: “Hey, have you heard about the big acquisition we’re planning? I might need your help.” The messages did not come from Benedetto Vigna’s company cell phone number, and the profile picture was different, even though it was the CEO’s picture. Another message read: “Be ready to sign a confidentiality agreement that our lawyer will send you as soon as possible.” A third message read: “The Italian market regulator and the Milan stock exchange have already been informed. Be ready and we ask you to maintain the utmost discretion.”

But the director realized something was wrong when he received a call from the same number. The voice on the other end of the call was an imitation of Benedetto Vigna using deepfake tools. The deepfaker began to say that he was calling from another mobile phone number because he had to discuss something confidential.

The director began to have suspicions and began to pick up the slightest mechanical intonations. He said to the deepfaker, “Excuse me, Benedetto, but I must identify you.”

Then he asked: What was the title of the book that Benedetto Vigna had recommended to him a few days earlier? Only the CEO could answer that question. After that, the call abruptly ended, and Ferrari launched an internal investigation.

This is not the first attempt to impersonate a high-profile executive, as reports emerged in May that Mark Read, CEO of advertising giant WPP Plc, had also fallen victim to a failed deepfake scam that involved someone impersonating him during a Teams phone call.

Stefano Zanero, a professor of cybersecurity at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy, said, according to Bloomberg, “It’s only a matter of time before these AI-based deepfake tools become incredibly accurate.”