\u2018I\u2019m in big trouble and I really need your help.\u201d\u00a0These are surely the words no parent wants to hear.<\/p>\n
Many people are aware of the \u201chi mum\u201d scam texts that started doing the rounds a few years ago and remain prevalent today. The victim receives a text or WhatsApp message from a phone number not in their contacts. It is supposedly their son or daughter who has lost their phone and is messaging from a friend\u2019s phone. They will tell you that they desperately need some money. <\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019ve been locked out of my bank\u201d, \u201cmy rent is overdue and I\u2019m going to be kicked out\u201d or even \u201cI\u2019ve been mugged and they took my bank card\u201d. They will then request that you send money into the friend\u2019s account who will take it out in cash for them. The money goes straight to the criminal, of course. <\/p>\n
While these scams are still effective, fraudsters are taking it up a notch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI-generated images are now being used<\/a> by criminals to generate panic and have victims act through feelings of fear and urgency rather than the logic they would usually employ. <\/p>\n One of the most disturbing of these is the \u201ckidnap scam\u201d. Through social media widely it\u2019s very easy to make links between family members, particularly on sites such as Facebook where relatives are often tagged in photos or birthday wishes. Armed with this information, a fraudster can very easily generate a photograph of someone in a life-threatening situation and send it to those that care about them. I had a photo of me being held captive created in a matter of minutes simply through loading existing photos of me on my social media into a free image generator.<\/p>\n AI-generated voice messages are also becoming more common. In 2020 there was a case of an attorney in Philadelphia who answered the phone and heard his son\u2019s voice telling him he had crashed into a pregnant woman\u2019s car, broken his nose and needed $9,000 for bail. He told his father to call an attorney assigned to his case, and after making that call the father was instructed to pay the money in bitcoin. This made the father uneasy, so he video called his son who confirmed that there was no such incident. Rather worryingly, all it takes to generate a convincing voice message is a few seconds of audio that can be taken from a social media video of the person talking. <\/p>\n Most frightening of all is that we are now heading into the era of \u201creal time video manipulation\u201d where a criminal can video call their intended victim looking exactly like the person they are pretending to be \u2014 essentially \u201cwearing\u201d their face. This can be used in all manner of scams \u2014 from sinister kidnap scams to sham investment schemes \u2014 and will be very effective in romance fraud. When a victim can speak to their \u201cpartner\u201d on a video call, they are likely to form deeper connections more quickly than if simply exchanging written messages.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aaron Pritz, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Reveal Risk, said: \u201cScammers will drop someone\u2019s face onto their own and fake scenarios intended to create panic and urgency \u2014 such as kidnapping, an accident, or a fake investment opportunity \u2014 and call would-be victims directly. <\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment the tech is moving faster than our ability to detect it at scale, so the only real defence is awareness and a healthy pause before believing what you see on a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n Protecting ourselves from fraud is increasingly difficult but there are some easy steps we can take to make it harder for criminals to target us. <\/p>\n Making social media accounts private is especially important, particularly those where you may \u201ctag\u201d other people. If you are contacted by someone saying they are a relative, hang up and call that person directly on the number you already have for them. Decide on a private \u201csafe word\u201d between your family members that no one else knows so that if anyone contacts you saying they are a daughter, nephew, grandson etc, you can ask them for that word. Lastly, don\u2019t have the same password for all of your social media accounts.<\/p>\n The AI boom is good news in so many ways \u2014 advances in science, increases in productivity and improved data handling. However, it is also good news for fraudsters, so we need to be extra vigilant and make it as difficult as we can for them.<\/p>\n Becky Holmes is the author of\u00a0Keanu Reeves Is Not in Love with You<\/a>\u00a0(Wilton Square Books \u00a310.99) and The Future of Fraud<\/a>\u00a0(Melville House \u00a39.99), which is out on April 23. Order from the timesbookshop.co.uk. Discount for Times+ members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m in big trouble and I really need your help.\u201d\u00a0These are surely the words no parent wants to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-399505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}