PSS309 Cybercrime: Deepfake-Enabled Cyber Threats in Fintech

In August 2025, a fintech firm based in Singapore, TPay Solutions, became the target of a highly sophisticated deepfake-enabled cyberattack. The firm specialised in cross-border digital payments, handling transactions for SMEs across Southeast Asia.

How the incident unfolded:

• Initial compromise: Hackers gained access to the firm’s internal meeting schedules through a compromised vendor account.
• Deepfake video call: Using publicly available conference recordings of the CEO of TPay Solutions, cybercriminals trained a generative AI model to create a real-time deepfake of both the CEO’s face and voice.
• Psychological pressure: During a scheduled video meeting with the finance department, the fraudulent “CEO” urgently requested staff to transfer SGD 10 million to secure a “time-sensitive acquisition deal” in Malaysia.
  o Employees were told not to consult legal counsel to avoid “regulatory delays.”
  o The request was framed as confidential, increasing psychological pressure.
• Execution: Trusting the instructions, staff authorised three transfers to overseas accounts within the day. By the time anomalies were detected, funds had been laundered through multiple crypto wallets.

As a result, TPay Solutions faced multiple consequences, including those that are financial, reputational, psychological, and societal in nature.

Question 1

Referring to the above case study,

(a) evaluate whether Singapore’s existing regulatory frameworks are adequate in addressing such emerging deepfake-enabled threats. (30 marks)

(b) analyse how human vulnerabilities were exploited to facilitate the success of the cyberattack. (20 marks)

Question 2

Appraise how deepfakes as a form of cyber threat affect individuals, organisations, society, and the global community. Support your answers with relevant examples wherever appropriate. Then formulate appropriate behavioural, technological, and policy solutions to manage the specific threat of deepfakes. (50 marks)

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Expert Answer on Above Cyber Crime Case Study

Adequacy of Singapore regulatory frameworks

An analysis of the Singaporean regulatory environment indicates that it has a strong cyber security and financial regulatory environment but the current framework has certain limitations in efficiently handling deep fake threats. The strength point of the current infrastructure is the CyberSecurity Act, MAS technology risk management guidelines that requires businesses to consider the implementation of cyber controls and data protection measures. These protection measures emphasise operational resilience and effective third party risk management. However the limitations are mainly in the form of lack of adequate guidance for deep fake specific cases and there always exists the human factor risk. There is no specific requirement for AI authentication tools which also highlights its limitations.
Evaluation: Although the regulatory framework is quite robust in Singapore, it needs notification with respect to exclusively addressing generative AI risks and strong deep fake detection standards.

Human vulnerabilities exploited

The attack was successful mainly because of exploitation of human psychology and it is not because of any kind of technical weaknesses. Human vulnerabilities were exploited in many ways such as authority bias whereby employees perceived that the instruction came from the top level CEO, and the employees were not provided with adequate time which restricted critical thinking. Employees were also not given enough authority and they were therefore not able to question senior authority.

Impact of deep fakes and solutions

When it comes to the impact of deep fakes, it leads to psychological distress, identity misuse and reputational harm within individuals, whereas for organisations, it results in financial losses and erosion of trust. For example, TPay has to face a $10 million SGD loss and reputational damage. Society and the global community also gets affected negatively as it leads to erosion of trust in digital communication and also increases cross border cyber crime.

Solutions to manage such threats: The solutions can be implemented in the form of behaviour solutions such as regulatory training on deepfakes, mandatory verification protocols etc whereas technological solutions can be AI-based detection tools and techniques, and multi Factor authentication. The policy based solutions can be to formulate deepfake specific regulatory guidelines and international cooperations on AI misuse.

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