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Artificial intelligence is changing the way scammers operate – here is some essential advice on how to stay safe.
In 2022 alone, Australians lost an unprecedented amount of money to scammers, with more than $3 billion swindled in just 12 months.
With AI thrown into the mix, scams could become immeasurably more effective – and harder to spot. Here are some of the prime contenders to watch for.
1. Investment fraud
One of the key AI scams circulating at the moment isn’t so much driven by AI, but rather is AI itself.
Social media platforms, particularly TikTok, are alive with scams promising incredible returns on investments in AI technologies. At the same time, some “AI-powered” investment platforms have emerged that promise to harness AI for massive returns on investments, but which are actually just scams looking for naive investors to hand over money.
As always, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Researching any potential investment at length can’t hurt, either.
2. Deepfakes
AI is increasingly being used to create seemingly believable voices and videos. When it comes to scams, this could mean a video of anything from your boss to a political figure or voice calls from someone purporting to be a friend or family member.
While it can be hard to spot, the behaviour of such scammers is often the telltale giveaway. Your boss is unlikely to call you directly and ask for money to be transferred to a particular account, for instance. If in doubt, use another method of communication to confirm any out-of-character requests.
3. Phishing
It has often been easy to spot scam emails or texts via the scammer’s poor grasp of spelling or grammar in English, but tools such as ChatGPT have changed all that.
A scammer can now create prompts in ChatGPT to tailor the text of a message to appear entirely legitimate and delivered by a native English speaker. Combined with the ability to spoof phone numbers and email addresses and by using seemingly legitimate logos, these phishing messages can be hard to spot.
Again, behaviour is the key. Most major banks are now no longer sending out links in their phone tests, for instance, to combat this particular method. So, if a message appears to be from a legitimate financial institution but calls upon a possible victim to click on a link, it’s very likely a scam.
Knowing how scams and scammers work is often the key to fighting them, and that’s just as true of AI-powered scams. To stay up to date on scamming techniques, and to report a scam, visit https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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