Criminals are Using AI to Make Scams More Believable
One of the coolest, and maybe the scariest things about the current wave of Artificial Intelligence tools is its capacity to sound convincingly human. Unfortunately, this ability means criminals are using AI to make scams more believable.
You can ask AI chatbots to produce writing that you wouldn’t realize was written by a machine. And they can continue to produce it quickly and with little input from humans.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that cybercriminals have been attempting to simplify their own criminal activity by employing AI chatbots.
Authorities have uncovered three main ways these criminals are able to use chatbots to commit malicious activity.
1. Creating Better Phishing Emails
Up until now, phishing emails were easy to spot due to their poor grammar and spelling. These emails are meant to deceive you into clicking a link that will download malware or even steal your personal information. Because AI-written content doesn’t contain many errors, it is far more difficult to detect.
Even worse, criminals can customize each phishing email they send, making it more difficult for spam filters to detect possibly harmful content.
2. Spreading Misinformation
The ability to spread misinformation is unprecedented. “write me 10 social media posts accusing the CEO of the Acme Corporation of having an affair. Mention the following news outlets.” It’s that easy. Spreading misinformation might not appear to be an immediate threat, but it can lead your staff to click on a malicious link, fall for scams, and even harm your company or team members’ reputation.
3. Writing Malicious Code
AI is already pretty good at writing computer code, and it’s only getting better. It might be something criminals use to create malware.
It’s not the software’s fault; it’s only following instructions, but until there’s a trustworthy way for the designers of AI to protect against this, it still poses a major risk.
The creators of AI tools also aren’t the ones responsible for criminals abusing their software. For instance, OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, is attempting to stop malicious users from abusing their capabilities.
This shows us all the necessity of staying one step ahead of online criminals in all that we do. That’s why we work incredibly hard to keep our clients safe from risk and inform them about what’s coming up next.
Keeping your people informed about how scams work and what to watch out for if you’re worried that they’ll all for any of these increasingly complex schemes.
If you need help with that, get in touch.
If you’d like to find out more about what’s new in the tech world, make sure to follow our blog!
Click here to schedule a free 15-minute meeting with Stan Kats, our Founder, and Chief Technologist.
STG IT Consulting Group proudly provides IT Services in Greater Los Angeles and the surrounding areas for all of your IT needs.
