Wiz, a cybersecurity startup worth 12 billion dollarsrecently experienced a “deepfake” attack that was thwarted because employees knew how the CEO usually speaks.

Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport explained at TechCrunch Disrupt on Monday that hackers manipulated the audio of his voice and sent a voice message to dozens of his team members to steal login credentials. of credential-based attackif successful, it would have allowed hackers to access Wiz's internal systems and steal his data.

Although fake audio has become more compellingRappaport's team knew the message was fake because it was based on a video of the CEO giving a speech — and so he doesn't speak in his day-to-day life.

Wiz's employees know that their CEO has public speaking anxiety, so there was a clear difference between the way he communicated during the speech and the way he usually speaks.

“That's how they were able to say, 'That doesn't sound like Assaf,'” Rappaport said.

^{Assaf Rappaport. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

Deep audio fraud has recently become widespread, reaching the highest levels of an organization. in may the largest advertising company in the worldWPP experienced a fake attack involving the voice and face of the firm's CEO.

Hackers went so far as to coordinate a Microsoft Teams meeting and create a deep fake of the CEO to “attend”. They intended to demand money and obtain personal information from the call. The attackers were not successful in this case either.

or poll released last week from cyber security company Regula shows that in 2024, half of all global companies will be subjected to fake audio and video attacks. Furthermore, 66% of business leaders said that deepfakes are a serious risk to their companies.

Related: Executives of the world's largest advertising company cheated using Deepfake of the company's CEO