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It should be acknowledged that artificial intelligence has made revolutionary changes in the field of modern technologies; however, it has also provided new opportunities to cyber criminals. Earlier, it was possible to distinguish a scammer because of poor language skills, various typos, or edited pictures.
However, today there is a trend that is associated with using the most innovative technology of cloning videos and voices to trap people on the Internet.
In order to learn about potential dangers that people may come across while using the Internet, it is important to get familiar with the basics of deepfake technology.
Deepfake is a kind of fake content that is produced by means of AI and that replaces the face or voice of a particular person. In the case of deepfake scams, this kind of technology turns into a tool of deceit that helps to get access to the personal information of people.
The scammers employ the following creative methods of utilizing the realistic fakes against ordinary people:
Criminals contact parents or grandparents of children who sound like children through cloning of the voice and ask for help because the child was in an accident and needs to be bailed out.
Fakes of billionaires’ or celebrities’ video messages appear in social networks and promote fraudulent cryptocurrency projects or giveaways.
The most threatening catfishing occurs as criminals use face-swap technology to perform live video chats with victims.
The employees receive video or audio messages from their “boss” ordering them to perform certain actions.
Though it has become increasingly difficult to detect these tactics, one can ensure their safety through certain practices. An extremely easy way to achieve this is by having a family safe word. The idea here is to pick some kind of code that is only known to your family members.
This will enable you to confirm someone’s identity when they contact you in case of any emergencies. Lastly, multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the best tool to secure your account details from hackers, regardless of the identity that they use.
With the development of artificial intelligence, the techniques employed to deceive people will become even more advanced. Being duped into falling for such scams can lead to substantial financial loss and even identity theft.
Nevertheless, being aware of the way in which these fake techniques work, setting up adequate authentication procedures, and being careful about digital requests will help one stay ahead of automated fraud.