Fraudsters’ new best friend

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/03/2024 (542 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadians are afraid, and for good reason.

Fraud is a continually growing concern, and technology is enabling fraudsters to excel at their dastardly occupation.

A handful of recent survey — their release coinciding this March for Fraud Awareness Month — highlight just how worried we are about being duped out of our money.

In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) is stoking well-founded paranoia.

A recent RBC poll found about three-quarters of Prairie-folk are more concerned about fraud than ever before, and nine out of 10 of those fear that AI will only make things worse.

They’re worried about deepfakes — false but often highly convincing videos of people they recognize. They’re also concerned about social engineering scams that use social media information to create highly targeted, individualized pitches.

And then there is voice cloning to trick us into believing we’re chatting with an acquaintance in an emergency, for example, requiring a large sum of money.

“AI adds a whole new level of sophistication,” says Davide Manzo, senior director of fraud strategy at RBC.

This technology doesn’t need to be used to create deepfakes, or the other scams. AI simply makes fraudsters more effective at the traditional scams of the last two decades.

That includes phishing, involving fake emails encouraging victims to offer up their log-in information and other confidential data, mistakenly thinking they are responding to a legitimate email requiring them to click on the link to log into their bank account, for example.

“You used to be able to spot grammar mistakes easily, but now AI makes it easy for fraudsters to create fake email campaigns that look very much like the real thing,” he says. “And they can execute this higher quality fraud at a faster, greater scale.”

Their success is also encouraging them to do more scamming.

“When they find something that works, they do much more of it, so we’re trying to prepare our customers to be on guard more than ever,” says Michael Nitz, district vice-president for Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba South at TD Canada Trust.

Certainly, TD’s recent fraud survey shows Manitoba and Saskatchewan respondents sense the increasing frequency with 77 per cent stating they are targeted — the highest among any region in Canada surveyed.

Their worry is well-placed, says cybersecurity and fraud prevention expert Joel Moses, chief technology officer at F5 Networks in Seattle, which provides cybersecurity across several industries, including finance.

“We’re in a dangerous spot right,” he notes, adding generative AI tools — allowing the quick creation of fake content from photos to videos to well-written documents — have democratized the technology for better and for worse.

While AI is a great tool to prevent and detect fraud, “it’s also cratered the cost of attacks, making it worth going after smaller accounts,” Moses says.

Already, fraudsters can use widely available generative AI tools to create convincing, grammatically correct phishing emails that leverage data, gleaned from social media, about victims — all done with little effort and time.

“The scary thing is these tools will only become more powerful and effective,” he adds.

All in all, AI may be a great technological leap forward that one day will help find treatments for incurable diseases of today.

But like the automobile, this technology has downsides, including making fraud much more pernicious.

“It used to be that spear-phishing attacks required a lot of reconnaissance,” Moses says.

Fraudsters would sift through social media, gather personal information and then create a scam targeted to an individual. This took time, effort and some skill.

“Today, generative AI can do that all in one step,” he says.

Of course, tools to fight fraud will only get better too thanks to AI, but for consumers, the best defence will always be a healthy dose of scepticism — paranoia, even — when receiving unsolicited contacts by phone, email, text message or video chat.

“Question the source and the nature of the message — like ’Do I really think it’s appropriate that Elon Musk is taking time to tell me personally about a great investment?’” Manzo notes.

In fact, many cautions that kept you safe yesterday still apply today.

— Do not click on links in emails and texts, particularly those leading you to a log-in page;

— Never send money to people “unless you’re 1,000 per cent sure” that they are who they say they are, Nitz says, adding go to, or call, your financial institution for advice if you’re uncertain;

— Leverage all security measures available, including regularly installing security patches for your phone, and using multi-factor authentication, which sends a text or email to confirm it’s indeed you, logging into your accounts;

— Do not reuse passwords, at least for important accounts such as banking and email;

— Remember: fraudsters always prey on emotions like fear, greed and impulsivity, so slow down and consider what’s being pitched.

“We really need people to be more and more cautious when someone reaches out to them claiming that they are their bank or someone needing money or their personal information,” Nitz warns.

“So if your gut tells you that something could be fishy, it likely is.”

Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist

joelschles@gmail.com