Criminals also use AI voice cloning tools for fraud

AI tools I ChatGPT caused an IT revolution this year, whether in a positive or negative sense. They are not only used by ordinary people to make their work easier, but are also abused by criminals for internet fraud. Most often, it concerns the creation of a more sophisticated one phishingubut according to the security company McAfee Scams abusing AI voice cloning tools are also on the rise.

Clone voice scams are celebrating success

According to a study by the company from 7 thousand people interviewed one in four said they had experienced an AI voice cloning scam or knew someone who had. And until 70 % of people in this global survey said they weren’t sure they could tell the difference between a cloned voice and a real voice. By imitating a familiar voice, fraudsters often pretend to be a friend or family member of the victim.

A fake loved one then claims, for example, that she had traffic accident (48%)she was robbed (47%)needs help on a foreign trip (41%)or lost her phone or wallet (43%). She then urgently asks the victim to send her money. Most often by transfer to a bank account, using recharge cards or in cryptocurrency. Sometimes victims are redirected to a fake site to obtain credit card credentials.

Overall, this approach has proven to be effective so far. One in ten people surveyed in the study reported receiving a message from an AI-cloned voice and 77 % of them said they lost money as a result. Of the people who reported losing money, 36 % stated that they had lost sums between 500 and 3 thousand dollarswhile 7 % sums were lost between 5 thousand and 15 thousand dollars.

Getting an original voice is easy

At the same time, criminals have no problem getting the original voice files to create clones. According to the study, up to 53 % of adults reported using their voice in online services or recording voice messages in online services at least once a week. Until 49 % he even does this sometimes up to ten times a week. All of these activities generate voice recordings that can be hacked or stolen as they are shared.

Criminals often get this information from public social media profiles where people post about themselves, their families and their vacations. People also commonly post their videos publicly on YouTubeshare them in posts or Stories on social networks, and sometimes even participate in public video conference broadcasts.