Be careful when receiving messages or video calls asking to borrow or borrow money online.

On March 31, Hanoi City Police said that recently, the situationFraudProperty appropriation in cyberspace is complicated.

Therefore, Hanoi City Police recommends that people be vigilant when receiving any messages or video calls with the content of borrowing or lending money via social networking applications.

Deepfake technology.

A typical case is Ms. VTM (26 years old, living in Long Bien, Hanoi) who received a message from a relative living abroad asking her to transfer 75 million VND to a certain account to borrow money.

At that time, Ms. VTM thought that this was a relative so she did not hesitate to transfer money. Ms. VTM said that when she received a message asking to borrow money from a relative, she carefully called back to check the video and saw that the image was indeed her friend. Ms. VTM trusted and transferred the loan right away.

But a while later, she saw a post on her relative's personal page announcing that her Facebook account had been hacked by a scammer to ask some friends and relatives to borrow money. Ms. VTM called her relative back and realized she had been scammed.

According to Hanoi City Police, Deepfake is a technology that applies artificial intelligence (AI) to create audio, image and video technology products that fake real-life objects with very high accuracy.

Based on the image file of a real-life person's face and voice, Deepfake will use algorithms to recreate the face and voice to match the facial features and expressions of another person; then create a video that completely impersonates the real-life subject.

Through the Internet, the subjects collect images and voices of users on social networks, using Deepfake technology to create animations and fake videos of users talking online with the same face, voice tone and form of address.

The subject created a fake social network account with the same information and profile picture as the user, added the victim to his friends list, and sent messages to borrow money according to a pre-existing scenario.

In some cases, the subject hijacks the user's social media account to directly message the victims in the friend list. To gain the victim's trust, the subject uploads the available Deepfake video to the video call channel, making the victim recognize the image and voice of an acquaintance and quickly transfer money as requested by the subject.

Hanoi City Police added that with Deepfake technology, fake videos have high accuracy, making it difficult to distinguish between real and fake. However, videos created by the subject often have general content, not completely consistent with the actual context of communication with the victim, which can make the victim suspicious and detect.

To cover up the above shortcomings, the subjects often create videos with hard-to-hear sound and unclear images, similar to video calls with unstable signals made in areas with weak mobile/wifi coverage. This is a very new and very sophisticated scam.

Therefore, Hanoi City Police recommends that people stay calm when receiving any messages or video calls with the content of borrowing or lending money via social networking applications, then call or contact relatives directly to verify (do not call via social networking applications such as Zalo, Messenger, Viber, Telegram...).

In case of suspicion of impersonating relatives on social networks to defraud or appropriate property, people need to immediately report to the nearest police agency for timely support and to combat, prevent and strictly handle the subjects according to the law./.