Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore, has warned his social media followers concerning the usage of deepfake movies that use his voice and picture to advertise cryptocurrency scams.
In posts made throughout varied platforms together with X (previously Twitter), LinkedIn, and Fb, Loong urged his followers to train warning and never fall for scammers who make use of synthetic intelligence (AI) expertise to create convincing deepfakes, falsely claiming that the prime minister ensures funding returns and crypto giveaways.
Loong even shared an instance video of himself being interviewed, which was created by scammers to endorse a fraudulent “hands-free crypto buying and selling” scheme.
“The usage of deepfake expertise to unfold disinformation will proceed to develop,” mentioned Loong.
“We should stay vigilant and study to guard ourselves and our family members in opposition to such scams.”
This isn’t the primary time that Loong has been focused by scammers.
In 2021, he cautioned Singaporeans to stay vigilant when coping with cryptocurrency platforms, as somebody had arrange a profile on BitClout to promote tokens utilizing pretend social media accounts.
Moreover, Loong and Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong confronted inquiries from lawmakers following the collapse of FTX in 2022.
Scammers have been using varied strategies to deceive people and steal their fiat forex or tokens for the reason that inception of cryptocurrencies.
In 2020, hackers compromised the accounts of outstanding Twitter customers, together with former United States President Barack Obama and President-elect Joe Biden, to advertise a Bitcoin rip-off.
$2 Billion Stolen in 2023
Regardless of shedding round $2 billion to crypto thefts, 2023 noticed a slight decline in hacking incidents concentrating on the cryptocurrency business.
In keeping with a current report from De.FI, a outstanding web3 safety agency recognized for its REKT database, hackers managed to pilfer $2 billion in digital belongings all year long.
Whereas that quantity remains to be alarming, it marks the primary lower in crypto hacking incidents since 2021.
The REKT database ranks probably the most devastating crypto hacks, starting from the historic breach of the Ronin community in 2022, the place hackers looted over $600 million in crypto, to the current assault on Mixin Community, leading to a haul of roughly $200 million.
“This cumulative quantity of stolen funds, unfold throughout a number of incidents, highlights the continued vulnerabilities and challenges inside the DeFi ecosystem,” said De.FI in its report.
“2023 served as a testomony to each the persisting vulnerabilities and the progress made in addressing them, regardless of muted curiosity within the area in the course of the first half of the yr because of the ongoing bear market.”
Among the many notable crypto thefts of the yr, Euler Finance suffered a devastating hack leading to losses of practically $200 million.
Different main breaches focused Multichain ($126 million), BonqDAO ($120 million), Poloniex ($114 million), and Atomic Pockets ($100 million), amongst numerous others.
In 2022, Chainalysis, a blockchain monitoring agency, reported an all-time excessive of $3.8 billion stolen by cybercriminals within the crypto realm.