Deepfake Tim Cook promotes crypto scam during Apple event

More than 350,000 people watched a video of Apple CEO Tim Cook promoting a cryptocurrency scam, but it was later revealed to be a deepfake created using artificial intelligence.

September 9th was a big day for tech giant Apple, with millions of people around the world waiting for its “Glowtime” event to unveil the new iPhone. Scammers used the opportunity to create multiple livestreams promoting the typical doubling-your-cryptocurrency scam.

One of the now-deleted posts had reached more than 355,000 people at one point. An old Tim Cook interview that had been altered by AI was used to trick people into sending various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), to a wallet address controlled by the scammers.

During the livestream, an AI-generated voice impersonating Cook described the scam scheme as “an ideal opportunity for beginners to get acquainted and involved in the world of cryptocurrency.”

Another livestream was broadcast on a YouTube account with a verification checkmark and named Apple US to mimic the tech giant’s official channel. Meanwhile, some other streams were livestreamed from accounts that had nothing to do with technology.

Scam promoted on a verified YouTube channel impersonating Apple | Source: X/Aadit Doshi

All of the videos featured a QR code that, when scanned, redirected to a malicious website designed to trick users. At the time of writing, one of the scam websites was still live, with the homepage displaying several wallet addresses for various cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, DOGE, and USDT.

Fake website created by crypto scammers | Source: crypto.news

To make it more convincing, the website also included a fake transaction history that was automatically updated to make it appear as if people were actually transferring their money.

Fake transaction history designed to mislead users | Source: crypto.news

After several users began reporting the scam livestreams, YouTube support acknowledged the incident and urged users to report the videos using YouTube’s reporting tool. The videos have since been removed from the platform.

Scammers continue to abuse YouTube

YouTube has become a hunting ground for deepfake scammers, as seen many times before. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was impersonated during the solar eclipse on April 8, with scammers spreading a similar scam across multiple YouTube channels that they rebranded to look like SpaceX.

YouTube has yet to officially comment on abuse of the platform, but the platform faced legal action in 2020 when 17 victims, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, sued YouTube demanding it remove scams impersonating them to promote fake Bitcoin giveaways.

Deepfake scams have increased by 245% this year, causing losses of around $80 billion, according to a June 2024 report by Bitget. This alarming trend has prompted regulators to take action, with AI providers like OpenAI proposing a new bill that would require users to include source information on all AI-generated content to increase transparency and accountability.