“That won’t happen to me” is something many business owners often say when discussing cyber-scams. Unfortunately, that’s getting to be a really stupid statement that you definitely don’t want your clients, employees, bank, or insurance company to hear. Cyber criminals continue to develop new and convincing scams. The latest example is the rise of “artificial imposters”. These are bogus voice messages criminals create using artificial intelligence (AI).
Generative AI tools enable scammers to produce deep fakes to defraud their targets. For example, Clive Kabatznik, an investor in Florida, called his local Bank of America representative to discuss a big money transfer he planned to make. Immediately after this legitimate call, a scammer called the bank back. They used an AI-generated artificial imposter voice of “Clive” to convince the banker to transfer the money to another account. Fortunately, the banker was suspicious enough to not transfer the money. However, not everyone is as lucky.
According to McAfee’s recent report titled The Artificial Imposter, 77% of AI voice scams were successful in securing money from their target. Even scarier, AI tools can clone a voice from just three seconds of audio.
In another instance, a UK-based energy firm’s CEO was the victim of a voice scam. He thought he was talking to his boss, the CEO of the parent company based in Germany. The voice on the other end of the line instructed him to send the equivalent of $233,000 to a Hungarian supplier. The voice was so convincing, down to the slight German accent, that the CEO complied without hesitation. By the time they realized what had happened, the money had already been transferred to Mexico and distributed to other locations that weren’t traceable.
Artificial Imposters Target More Than Big Businesses
Jennifer DeStefano, a mother of a 15-year-old daughter, recounted her terrifying encounter with an AI scammer during a US Senate hearing. The scammer used the voice of Jennifer’s daughter to attempt to convince her that the girl had been kidnapped. Fortunately, her daughter was in her bed sleeping at the time. Therefore, Jennifer was able to realize it was a scam. Many others aren’t as lucky as Jennifer. They are getting scammed by AI voices of grandchildren, children and other loved ones who “urgently need money.”
This approach is still so new that there’s no comprehensive accounting of how often it happens. The CEO of Pindrop, a security company that monitors audio traffic for many of the largest US banks, said he had seen a jump in its prevalence this year. He’s also seen a jump in the sophistication of scammers’ voice-fraud attempts. Another large voice-authentication vendor, Nuance, saw its first successful deepfake attack on a financial services client late last year.
AI technology is advancing rapidly and it has wider availability as costs come down. This is coupled with the broad availability of recordings of people’s voices on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. As a result, the perfect conditions have developed for voice-related artificial imposters.
What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?
For starters, share this article to make sure your staff is aware of artificial imposters. Next, instruct them to ALWAYS check with you via a secondary means BEFORE transferring money. If you’re not a business owner, you can do the same with your family. You can also use a code word or other means of verifying the caller’s legitimacy.
Also, check the caller ID. If it’s something you don’t recognize, or it’s a blocked number, that’s a BIG red flag that it’s a scam. Even if it sounds like a person you know on the other end of the line, hang up. Then call their phone directly.
If the person calling has on-fire urgency and wants money wire-transferred or a Bitcoin payment, that’s another huge red flag. Real emergencies don’t come with highly suspicious payment demands.
In business, you’ve clawed and climbed your way to the top, dodging all sorts of pitfalls and predators that have tried to make you their meal. Such threats are everywhere. No matter how small and insignificant you might think you are, you ARE a target for someone. The higher you climb, the more you’ll find hiding behind every tree, every rock and every step. In today’s climate, being casual about cyber criminals and the threats they pose is an absolute surefire way to be robbed.
If you don’t want this to happen to you, click here to request a free Cyber Security Risk Review to see just how protected your organization is against known predators. If you haven’t had an independent third party conduct this audit in the last 6 months, you’re due.
It’s completely free and confidential, without obligation. Voice scams are just the latest in a tsunami of threats aimed at small business owners. The most susceptible are the ones who never “check the locks” to ensure their current IT company is doing what they should. Claim your complimentary Risk Review today.