voice-cloning technology<\/a>, deepfake videos and deceptive advertising slowly coming to the fore.<\/p>\nAs messages can only mimic legitimate organisations to a point, AI-generated deepfakes and voices are becoming more prevalent in phishing scams impersonating banks, government agencies and authoritative figures, Alcock said.<\/p>\n
Cybersecurity experts are responding in kind by employing similar tools and strengthening verification methods to flag threats before they reach inboxes or infiltrate accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, this stuff always comes down to people, right? And it\u2019s the basics. It\u2019s about having that security awareness,\u201d Alcock said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re still just targeting the lowest common denominator … send it out to a thousand people and hope that one person bites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building on what works, modern scams are designed to provoke fast, emotional reactions that bypass rational, measured decision-making.<\/p>\n
![\"Experts]()
Experts warn AI-powered deepfakes and voice-cloning technology are now being used to mimic businesses, government agencies and prominent figures. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
Techniques used elicit feelings of fear and urgency, exploiting human behaviour by trapping victims into thinking they\u2019re responding to time-sensitive requests from an authoritative source.<\/p>\n
Alcock noted the latest AI tools draw from the endless amounts of training data and information already publicly available, and can build a synthetic person whose voice or features are co-opted for its intended recipient.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople trip up by just not looking close enough at what it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs they get better and better, it becomes harder and harder to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organisations like the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have stepped up public awareness campaigns, but Alcock said individuals still need to slow down and critically assess what\u2019s in front of them before taking action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s something that invokes an emotional response, you\u2019re probably less likely to stop and think,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll create a sense of urgency … it needs to be done, it\u2019s expiring soon or it needs to be done by this date.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can go into a little bit of a state of shock when they see that, and then don\u2019t think the rest of the things through.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Netsafe]()
Netsafe says nearly $65,000 has already been lost to increasingly sophisticated, hard-to-detect scams this year. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
The psychological gameplay is a core part of the digital \u201cscamscape\u201d, with distracted, complacent or time-poor people most likely to fall victim.<\/p>\n
Alcock said New Zealanders are mostly targeted by offshore scammers who prove difficult to trace, and with few enforcement measures available, preventing a successful swindle from happening in the first place remains the only real protective measure.<\/p>\n
He recommended adding extra protections to accounts and devices \u2013 enabling multi-factor authentication, using trusted password managers, verifying requests through official channels and staying on top of hardware and software updates \u2013 to maximise security guarantees.<\/p>\n
Simple reporting measures, such as flagging phishing texts or emails, also help improve detection systems that telco providers and businesses use.<\/p>\n
Stigma often prevents people from speaking up after being caught up in a scam, but Alcock believes normalising discussions around cybersecurity and online safety remain key to keeping an edge over the bad actors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not anything to be ashamed of, but it\u2019s something that people need to learn from,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cScams evolve in terms of how they might do something, and then we evolve in terms of how we detect and protect against those. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of the day, if you override that, it\u2019s the awareness that\u2019s key.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s definitely an arms race,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bad guys have a lot less restrictions in place for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59981,192,48052,198,12693,40442,159989,1651,4480,3561,8455,1437,5838,221,16420,51928,28641,809,807,700,111,43,139,69,1642,193915,2290,139047,19098,18434,22889,29238,27051,50898,24358,1955,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-370771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-ais","9":"tag-are","10":"tag-attempts","11":"tag-can","12":"tag-connectivity","13":"tag-convincing","14":"tag-deceptively","15":"tag-digital","16":"tag-drive","17":"tag-fraud","18":"tag-getting","19":"tag-global","20":"tag-help","21":"tag-how","22":"tag-human","23":"tag-increasingly","24":"tag-innovative","25":"tag-keep","26":"tag-kiwis","27":"tag-latest","28":"tag-new-zealand","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-newzealand","31":"tag-nz","32":"tag-online","33":"tag-preying","34":"tag-psychology","35":"tag-realistic","36":"tag-safe","37":"tag-scams","38":"tag-smarter","39":"tag-tactics","40":"tag-themselves","41":"tag-tools","42":"tag-wave","43":"tag-ways","44":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}