As a consultant on business ethics, book author and a national keynote speaker on business ethics and business fraud, I speak on the importance of maintaining vigilance. Fraudsters and scam artists are arming themselves with new ways to part people from their money.
As much as I like AI
Any technology can be used, of course, for good or for evil. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a tremendous tool for aspects of customer service, marketing, medical diagnostics, finance and many other fields. However, fraudsters see possibilities where legitimate businesses are speechless.
In fact, there are new sets of frauds perpetrated that are based on sound and sights. According to the Insurance Journal (August 23, 2023):
“Computer-generated children’s voices so realistic they fool their own parents. Masks created with photos from social media that can penetrate a system protected by face ID. They sound like the stuff of science fiction, but these techniques are already available to criminals preying on everyday consumers.”
That is correct. All AI software needs to do is to grab a digital recording of a child’s or teenager’s voice, animate their faces, and the fraudster is off to the races. Just this morning in preparation for this post, within the space of 10-minutes, I accessed TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and even an educational website, and saw digital clips and animated images of children from five to 21.
The level of sophistication of “Deepfake Imposter Scams” is so great, that even at this early stage of the technology, fraudsters can take a video clip of your child, teenager or college student and create a very passable fake. The wisest parent may possibly detect a problem, but what about an 85-year-old grandmother?
Be warned and develop strategies
For the most part, these scams are run from afar and are out after money. That is their primary need. In 2022, consumers in the United States were defrauded by almost $9 billion (and despite those who profess sophistication, the amount of fraud increased by 44 percent from 2021). The latest statistics from the Federal Trade Commission show that funds stolen from consumers tend to be bimodal. There are huge numbers of consumers defrauded at the lower end ($1,000 to $2,000) but the largest spike occurs at $10,000 to 1-million. In fact, more than 86-thousand consumers were defrauded at that upper end in 2022 alone.
Imagine this: a parent announces on Facebook that their college student is about to leave for Italy on a museum tour. In fact, folks, here is a video clip of my child telling you why she is going!
According to Insurance Journal:
“Now parents get calls that clone their child’s voice with AI to sound indistinguishable from the real thing. These tricks, known as social engineering scams, tend to have the highest hit rates and generate some of the quickest returns for fraudsters. Cloning a person’s voice is increasingly easy.”
According to the experts, all a scam artist adept at AI fraud needs is about one-minute’s worth of a child’s voice to synthesize an entire conversation.
The scam artist, working with a team, may send out 20 or more faked voices and images at a time. Scam artists operating worldwide know that parents and guardians will spend anything if they are led to believe their child is in danger overseas or in a domestic situation.
As a consultant on business ethics, business ethics book author and a national keynote speaker on business ethics and business fraud, I have seen a multitude of frauds so sophisticated it is like the real thing. For example, fraudsters have been known to create latex masks from a digitally-posted image or video, simulate the voices and totally fool parents or guardians into paying off tens of thousands of dollars.
Indeed, there is new voice recognition software for financial institutions to recognize the possibility to a scam. However, it is of little comfort to a parent or family or even a corporation getting defrauded.
Common sense
The most effective tool against these AI-driven scams is simple common sense. For reasons we might inquire of psychologists, when it comes to social media, while families and even organizations might be otherwise competent and professional, when using social media all bets are off and all barriers are lifted.
Fraudsters don’t have to know your teenager is heading to Italy to study art; they don’t have to see itineraries complete with a video clip of the clever student announcing to 500 “close friends.” But they often do.
The above, of course, is but one of a hundred scenarios we could imagine. The worst part of social media obsessions is that it is so trusted.
As an expert on ethics, I see the fraud and technology problem as only getting worse. The only way to outsmart it, is to fall back on common sense and precaution and teach it to those you love.
