Glossary term
Executive Impersonation (CEO Fraud)
Definition
Executive impersonation, often called CEO fraud, is the use of deepfake voice or video to pose as senior leadership and pressure employees into urgent, confidential actions — typically wire transfers or credential disclosure. It is the deepfake evolution of business email compromise (BEC), moving the deception from a spoofed inbox to a live call.
Why it matters for financial institutions
The losses are headline-scale: in one widely reported 2024 case, an employee at engineering firm Arup transferred roughly US$25 million after a video call with deepfaked executives. Remote-first work has normalized video authorization for exceptional transactions, and a convincing face and voice on a call now overrides written-process skepticism.
How FalsiFind addresses it
FalsiFind verifies the media, not the story: live call audio and video are screened for synthesis artifacts, so a deepfaked executive is flagged during the call. Signed evidence bundles document the detection, supporting both the interrupted fraud case and subsequent investigation.