Identity verification company (nearly) scammed by deepfake interviewees

Last week, Sedicii—an Ireland-based identity verification company—posted a job ad on LinkedIn looking for a full-stack engineer. 

Quickly, they were flooded with 90 applications from all over Europe. 

They whittled down the long list to a shortlist of 13, all of whom were interviewed. 

They landed on 3 they liked and interviewed them again. 

Finally, 2 candidates were chosen for a final interview. 

The CEO and Founder, Rob Leslie, conducted the final interview. 

“This is where things got interesting,” he said. 

Both candidates had Estonian names but looked Asian and spoke English with Chinese accents.

“I’m fairly certain that both candidates were using AI to alter their video streams,” he said. 

The giveaway?

The lips were out of sync with the words. 

Rob asked them to present their passport details. These also looked AI-generated. 

One presented a reference for a past employer who was also a candidate on the shortlist. 

“I know the CEO of that company,” said Rob. 

As it turned out, the CEO didn’t know either of the two men. 

❌ Fake LinkedIn accounts

❌ Fake passports

❌ References were stolen identities (the giveaway was that it was connected to a gmail account). 

“It’s a huge concern that they managed to get to a final interview,” he said. “Our team only spotted the deception until we started to drill into detail.” 

He contacted LinkedIn. 

“I suspect there’s a major criminal ring at work.”

You can read the original post here.