The African Union Commission has been a victim of cybercrime after scammers used artificial intelligence capabilities to pose as Moussa Faki, the leader of the continental organization.
The secretariat of the African Union often writes to world leaders whenever Mr. Faki, the Chairperson of the African Union Commision, needs to make a call.
It is customary for the African Union leadership to request meetings with officials from other nations or international bodies in writing, known formally as a note verbale.
Fraudsters pretended to be him and made a number of video calls to European capitals in an effort to set up meetings.
According to the AU Commision, the cybercriminals also used phoney email addresses to pose as the organization’s deputy chief of staff in an effort to set up phone meetings between foreign leaders and Mr. Faki.
Then, using elaborate phoney video adjustments to pass as the chairwoman, the pranksters held video calls with a number of European leaders, according to Mr. Faki’s spokesman, Ebba Kalondo.
The AUC reiterated that it only communicates with foreign governments through their Embassies in Addis Abeba and expressed its “regret” for these instances in a statement released on Friday.
“The African Union Commission reiterates its strict adherence to diplomatic protocol and exclusive usage of Note Verbale for high-level engagement requests,” Ms Kalondo said in a tweet.
Although it is yet unclear what the imposters’ motivations were, the AU statement called their fraudulent emails “phishing,” a sign that they may have wanted to steal digital identities in order to access restricted information.
Deep fakes, a technique utilised by cybercriminals, are frequently employed by various organisations to disseminate propaganda and false information.
They entail creating a film of someone doing or saying something they haven’t actually done utilizing their picture, voice, and traits using artificial intelligence algorithms.
