How Deepfake Scams Are Using CEOs to Target Colorado Businesses

To make a deepfake, cybercriminals only need a few seconds of audio, pulled from a recorded webinar, a LinkedIn video, or a company voicemail, and an AI tool that most people could download this afternoon. And deepfake scams work by manufacturing trust when your team is least likely to question it. All it takes is a familiar voice, a recognizable face on a video call, and just enough urgency to make verification feel like an inconvenience. By the time anyone pauses to confirm the request, the wire transfer is already in motion.

What Is a Deepfake CEO Scam?

A deepfake scam is an attack in which criminals use artificial intelligence to fabricate convincing audio, video, or both, and it’s close enough to the real thing to fool someone who knows the person being impersonated. In the case of CEO impersonation, the goal is almost always financial. Attackers research a target company, identify who processes payments or manages accounts, and then build a scenario designed to make an urgent money transfer feel routine.

The technology required to pull this off is no longer limited to sophisticated nation-state hackers. Now, it is accessible to nearly anyone with a laptop and an internet connection, and it’s become a real threat for small and midsize businesses throughout Colorado.

How the Technology Has Evolved

For years, attackers relied on spoofed email addresses and forged documents. This is the foundation of what is now broadly called AI phishing, where digital tools are used to mimic legitimate communications. The threat escalated when voice cloning software became commercially available and easy to use. Real-time video deepfakes have followed, with tools now capable of generating a fake face during a live call. The tactics attackers use to impersonate trusted figures have evolved, and most businesses have not updated their defenses to match.

Why Smaller Businesses Make Easier Targets

Many business owners assume deepfake fraud is a concern for corporations with complex financial operations and dedicated security teams. However, smaller organizations are often more attractive targets because they tend to operate with fewer formal approval layers and less structured training around emerging threats. A professional services firm with one person managing accounts payable, or a healthcare practice where the office manager handles vendor payments, is in many ways easier to manipulate than a company with a multi-step authorization chain.

The Financial Damage Is Real and Growing

CEO fraud costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars each year,, and losses have continued to climb as AI voice scam technology makes these attacks easier to execute and harder to detect. When a wire transfer scam succeeds, recovering the funds is difficult and, in many cases, impossible. Once the money moves, it typically moves fast and across multiple accounts designed to obscure the trail.

To put it plainly, a single incident can represent weeks or months of revenue for a small business. Understanding what a successful cyberattack actually costs makes it easier to justify the time and resources it takes to prevent one.

Red Flags Your Team Should Know

The challenge with deepfake scams is that they are designed to feel completely normal in the moment. But there are consistent patterns that show up across these attacks, and training your team to recognize them is one of the most effective things you can do. Being familiar with the following cybersecurity awareness warning signs could be the difference between a close call and a $50,000 loss.

Urgency without room for verification. Legitimate executive requests for large wire transfers are rarely framed as emergencies that can’t wait five minutes for a callback. Pressure to act immediately is a manufactured condition.
Requests to skip the normal process. A scammer’s worst enemy is your internal approval chain. Any request to “keep this quiet,” bypass a department head, or move money before getting the usual sign-off should stop the conversation cold.
A vishing attack timed to your business activity. Vishing often lands at strategically convenient moments, like during a vendor payment cycle or the end of a quarter. Criminals research their targets and time their calls to match familiar routines, making the request feel less out of the ordinary.
Audio or video that feels slightly off. Unnatural pauses, a voice that sounds slightly processed, or lip movements that don’t quite sync with the audio are early signs of AI involvement. These imperfections are getting rarer as the technology improves, but they still appear.
An AI voice scam that pushes back on verification. Any caller who resists or discourages you from calling back on a separate line to confirm a request is almost certainly not who they claim to be.

Threats are evolving faster than most businesses have time to track, and recognizing the warning signs is only half the equation. Colorado Hi-Tech Solutions’ managed security services are built around the proactive monitoring and employee training that help Colorado businesses stay ahead.

Learn More

What Your Business Can Do Right Now

No business is fully immune to a well-executed deepfake scam, but the organizations that get targeted and don’t lose money share a few things in common. They have clear policies around financial verification, they invest in regular employee training, and they work with a security partner who helps them stay current on how these attacks are actually evolving. The goal is to ensure that urgency, which attackers manufacture deliberately, never becomes a reason to skip the steps that protect your money and your clients.

Build a Verification Protocol

Never authorize a wire transfer based on a single communication channel, no matter who appears to be asking. Establish a standing policy that any financial request above a defined dollar threshold requires a confirmed callback to a pre-stored phone number.

Make this step non-negotiable for everyone who touches accounts payable, and make sure the policy is documented rather than informal. A ten-second phone call to a number you already know is all it takes to stop most of these attacks before they go anywhere. Effective cybersecurity awareness training for your employees should include this protocol explicitly, so every team member knows exactly what to do when an unusual financial request arrives.

Make Security Training Non-Negotiable

The human element is both the most targeted vulnerability and the most reliable line of defense, but only when your team actually knows what these attacks look like in practice. Regular, updated training that covers AI-driven social engineering, deepfakes, and voice-based fraud ensures that employees know what questions to ask and when to pause before acting.

The people most likely to fall for these scams are not careless; instead they are busy, trusting, and simply have not been shown what these attacks look like in real time. Understanding how employees can unknowingly introduce security risks through their day-to-day habits is equally important to the technical protections your security team puts in place.

Don’t Wait Until the Wire Is Already Gone

By the time most businesses realize they have been hit by a deepfake scam, the money has already moved, and recovering it is rarely straightforward. Colorado Hi-Tech Solutions works with businesses throughout Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Denver to build security programs that account for exactly these kinds of emerging threats.

Reach out today to schedule a free, in-person consultation and make sure your team is prepared before the call comes in.

How Deepfake Scams Are Using CEOs to Target Colorado Businesses

What Is a Deepfake CEO Scam?

How the Technology Has Evolved

Why Smaller Businesses Make Easier Targets

The Financial Damage Is Real and Growing

Red Flags Your Team Should Know

What Your Business Can Do Right Now

Build a Verification Protocol

Make Security Training Non-Negotiable

Don’t Wait Until the Wire Is Already Gone

Share This Post

More Like This

How to Build an AI Acceptable Use Policy for Employees With Company Data Access

Is ChatGPT HIPAA Compliant? What Healthcare Practices Need to Know

Understanding New Cyber Insurance Requirements

What Happens When AI Hackers Impersonate Your IT Provider

How Your Employees Could Be Creating AI Data Security Risks

Cloud Security Best Practices Every Colorado Springs Business Should Know

How to Protect Your Business From Insider Threats to Cybersecurity

How To Implement Effective Cybersecurity Awareness Training for Your Employees

How Cybersecurity Services in Colorado Save Your Business From Costly Data Breaches

About Us

Technology Solutions

Contact Us