![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/df6977ee-889e-407a-9bf1-5d4dadcbba67.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSearching for an airline\u2019s customer service number on the internet could send you flying into the clutches of scammers, researchers have warned.<\/p>\n
Criminals have worked out how to manipulate the AI results of search engines like Google and Perplexity so that instead of delivering the official British Airways help number, they give you a scam call centre instead.<\/p>\n
Perplexity is an AI search engine that aims to deliver \u201canswers\u201d to your questions rather than a selection of websites for you to browse through.<\/p>\n
Google has also started delivering text answers to queries through its \u201coverviews\u201d and \u201cAI mode\u201d features.<\/p>\n
These results are powered by an AI large language model (LLM) that trawls through trusted sources to give you the most likely answer to your query. Experts believe this will become the default way to search the web eventually.<\/p>\n
However, scammers have started seeding fake call centre numbers on the web so the AI is tricked into thinking it is genuine, according to the cybersecurity company Aurascape.<\/p>\n
Criminals have set up YouTube channels with videos claiming to help with customer support, which are packed with airline brand names and scam numbers designed to be scraped and reused by the AI.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Airlines such as British Airways and Emirates have been affected<\/p>\n
TOLGA AKMEN\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
Bot-generated reviews on Yelp or video descriptions on YouTube are filled with fraudulent numbers as are airline and travel web forums.<\/p>\n
Qi Deng, the principal threat research engineer at Aurascape, said this tactic is a \u201cnew and largely unmonitored attack surface\u201d that \u201cthreat actors are already exploiting at scale\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe result is a new class of fraud in which AI systems themselves become unintentional amplifiers of scam phone numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is not isolated to a single model or single vendor \u2014 it is becoming systemic.\u201d <\/p>\n
The scammers have also hijacked government sites, university domains and even fitness sites to place scam numbers, which fools the AI into thinking they are genuine.<\/p>\n
\u2022 How not to get scammed at Christmas: a fraud expert reveals all<\/a><\/p>\n Queries on Perplexity that delivered the scam numbers included \u201cthe official Emirates airline reservations number\u201d and \u201chow can I make a reservation with British Airways by phone, what are the steps\u201d. The search engine gave a step-by-step guide that repeated the number and described it as a hotline for booking, upgrades and urgent travel needs.<\/p>\n The same pattern was repeated on Google\u2019s AI overview feature when asking for \u201cEmirates airlines phone number to make reservation and steps in US\u201d. Most of the results were for US-based numbers.<\/p>\n Chatbots from ChatGPT and Anthropic did provide the correct answer, but revealed that they were still drawing on \u201cpoisoned\u201d sources. The researchers note this \u201chighlights how deeply these poisoned documents have propagated across web indices and answer engines, creating a broad, cross-platform contamination effect\u201d.<\/p>\n Attackers are tricking AI-powered systems and poisoning content<\/p>\n AURASCAPE.AI<\/p>\n Scammers have long tried to \u201cpoison\u201d search engine results, but experts from Aurascape\u2019s Aura Labs believe this is the first real-world campaign where attackers systematically manipulate public web content to trick AI-powered systems.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/cd776d57-094e-4181-8d87-0b4bb1ed7ad4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n