Earlier this Monday, a fraudulent YouTube stream featuring Apple CEO Tim Cook popped up on the popular video hosting platform ahead of the tech giant's big event.
The stream featured Cook promoting a cryptocurrency giveaway scam with a realistic-sounding voice that was obviously generated with the help of artificial intelligence.
Within just minutes, it managed to attract more than a million viewers ahead of the event, during which Apple is finally on track to reveal the iPhone 16 as well as the new Apple Watch.
The bogus announcement claimed that crypto was going to make the world more fair, and the fraudulent giveaway was meant to speed up this process.
Potential victims were being encouraged to send any amount of Dogecoin (DOGE) to the "contribution address" by scanning a QR code in order to double their money. Apart from DOGE holders, scammers were also targeting Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT) users.
The fake stream made it to the top of search results after including all related keywords in its description, including "Apple," a recent hit song by British pop singer Charli XCX.
This is, of course, not the first time that fraudsters have tried to capitalize on the enthusiasm surrounding Apple events in order to promote crypto giveaways. As reported by U.Today, tens of thousands of users were also tricked into watching a fake stream a crypto sham back in 2022. However, the proliferation of AI makes such scams more insidious given that voice-mimicking technology makes it easier to trick unsuspecting victims.
Valeria Blokhina
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team