FBI Warns of Cybercriminals Using Generative AI to Launch Phishing Attacks

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns that threat actors are increasingly using generative AI to increase the persuasiveness of social engineering attacks. 

Criminals are using these tools to generate convincing text, images, and voice audio to impersonate individuals and companies.

“Generative AI reduces the time and effort criminals must expend to deceive their targets,” the FBI says. “Generative AI takes what it has learned from examples input by a user and synthesizes something entirely new based on that information.

These tools assist with content creation and can correct for human errors that might otherwise serve as warning signs of fraud. The creation or distribution of synthetic content is not inherently illegal; however, synthetic content can be used to facilitate crimes, such as fraud and extortion.”

The Bureau offers the following advice to help users avoid falling for these attacks:

• Create a secret word or phrase with your family to verify their identity
• Look for subtle imperfections in images and videos, such as distorted hands or feet, unrealistic teeth or eyes, indistinct or irregular faces, unrealistic accessories such as glasses or jewelry, inaccurate shadows, watermarks, lag time, voice matching, and unrealistic movements
• Listen closely to the tone and word choice to distinguish between a legitimate phone call from a loved one and an AI-generated vocal cloning
• If possible, limit online content of your image or voice, make social media accounts private, and limit followers to people you know to minimize fraudsters' capabilities to use generative AI software to create fraudulent identities for social engineering
• Verify the identity of the person calling you by hanging up the phone, researching the contact of the bank or organization purporting to call you, and call the phone number directly
• Never share sensitive information with people you have met only online or over the phone
• Do not send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other assets to people you do not know or have met only online or over the phone

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The FBI has the story.