Audio deepfakes: Celebrity-endorsed giveaway scams and fraudulent investment opportunities flood social media platforms

Bitdefender Labs observed widespread social-engineering campaigns using AI voice cloning (audio deepfakes) on Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger) to advertise fake celebrity-endorsed giveaways and bogus investment schemes; these ads redirected users to cloned news sites and phishing pages that harvest personal and payment data, with an estimated reach of at least one million users across the US and Europe (notably Romania). The report explains how voice cloning is produced, gives examples of impersonated celebrities and local public figures, describes ad redirection and sandbox-evasion techniques, highlights common deepfake artifacts, and provides detection and mitigation advice for consumers.