A leading South African medical professional’s face and voice were faked to sell male potency products, and to steal money from those deceived by the scam – one which is becoming increasingly common, and difficult to stamp out, according to experts.
Professor Kgomotso Mathabe, head of urology at the University of Pretoria and the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, was the second black female doctor in the country to qualify in this field – but cyber criminals are now abusing her name and face in adverts on Facebook to promote “male potency” products.
Wits computer science and AI professor Benjamin Rosman told the Sunday Times that deepfakes – manipulated images or recordings misrepresenting people online, often for nefarious reasons – have become increasingly common, and “have become a lot better and a lot easier to create”.
Typically, deepfakes target celebrities, politicians and other public figures in an effort to spread misinformation, manipulate people and commit crimes.
“It’s like the Wild West and we need to put in safeguards,” said Craig Rosewarne, MD of the Wolfpack cybersecurity company. “In the past six months, deepfakes (of South Africans) have gone from almost zero to become more mainstream. Everyday criminals are able to use the technology.”
Social media
The deepfake video attack on Mathabe came to her attention this year. “On 2 January, a colleague sent me a link to the advert on Facebook. I didn’t take it very seriously as I’m not active on social media,” she said.
As a urologist who works “every day with the male pelvis and penis”, she was not shocked by the explicit anatomical drawings below her image in the online ad.
“But that was before I got an inexplicable flurry of messages on LinkedIn from people wanting refunds, and phone calls from people inquiring about medication and wanting to consult with me. Some of them had entered bank details and had debits off their account of R500 or more.”
Dozens of angry calls clogged the hospital switchboard. On 12 January, Mathabe reported the attack to her CEO and the national Department of Health.
By 17 January, she had enough evidence to report the scam at the Villieria police station.
“The cops did not (grasp) what I was talking about. I had to take a picture of a poster on cybercrime to show them… The police outsource cybercrime investigations because they do not have the resources.”
Mathabe also reported the false advert to the Health Department and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, “even though there was no product”.
This type of deepfake attack is difficult to control or eliminate – a link is deactivated and then another one goes active – as Mathabe's colleague in urology in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr Santosh Bugwandin, discovered.
“I got calls about me inventing a new drug. They put me on a podium and the advert had a link to buy the new drug, asking for bank details. The police did not want to open a case without an actual crime. But people may not want to go to the police and speak about a sexual health product. I feel a bit helpless knowing that people were being scammed in my name.”
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Bogus doctors promising 'voluptuous hips' arrested in Limpopo