Hackers are making deepfakes to scam crypto community, says Binance executive

Patrick Hillmann, Chief Communications Officer at Binance has warned about rising online scams that are targeting the crypto community. He claimed that scammers are making deep fakes of his image in Zoom calls to scam crypto executives. “Over the past month, I’ve received several online messages thanking me for taking the time to meet with project teams regarding potential opportunities to l their assets on Binance.com. This was odd because I don’t have any oversight of or insight into Binance lings, nor had I met with any of these people before,” he wrote in a blog post.
Deepfake is a video of a person in which their face is usually altered so that they appear to be someone else. This is typically used maliciously or to spread false information. Hillmann said that sophicated hacking teams have used previous news interviews and TV appearances over the years to create a “deep fake” of him.
There’s been a recent spike in hackers pretending to be Binance employees and executives on platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, etc. Recently, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao on Twitter said that only 50 out of 7,000 users claiming to be employees of Binance on LinkedIn are real.

According to Hillman, the first line of defence is always the users themselves. “Be vigilant and always take proactive steps to ensure you don’t fall prey to scams and impersonations,” he said. Further, he said that the Binance Verify tool to check whether the account officially represents Binance is not foolproof. For example, a scammer can spoof their “from” email address or hide behind the real name of a Binance employee. In both cases, Binance Verify would produce mixed results.
He has asked interested crypto executives to make sure to only submit forms via the official ling application link found on the footer of Binance’s official website.