Threat Actors Are Increasingly Abusing AI Tools to Help With Scams

Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI tools to assist in malicious activities, according to Microsoft’s latest Cyber Signals report.

“AI has started to lower the technical bar for fraud and cybercrime actors looking for their own productivity tools, making it easier and cheaper to generate believable content for cyberattacks at an increasingly rapid rate,” the report says.

“AI software used in fraud attempts runs the gamut, from legitimate apps misused for malicious purposes to more fraud-oriented tools used by bad actors in the cybercrime underground.”

Notably, these tools can streamline the reconnaissance phase to help threat actors easily craft personalized spear phishing attacks.

“AI tools can scan and scrape the web for company information, helping cyberattackers build detailed profiles of employees or other targets to create highly convincing social engineering lures,” the researchers write. “In some cases, bad actors are luring victims into increasingly complex fraud schemes using fake AI-enhanced product reviews and AI-generated storefronts, where scammers create entire websites and e-commerce brands, complete with fake business histories and customer testimonials. By using deepfakes, voice cloning, phishing emails, and authentic-looking fake websites, threat actors seek to appear legitimate at wider scale.”

Crooks are also using generative AI to quickly spin up phony job postings on employment sites.

“The rapid advancement of generative AI has made it easier for scammers to create fake listings on various job platforms,” Microsoft says. “They generate fake profiles with stolen credentials, fake job postings with auto-generated descriptions, and AI-powered email campaigns to phish job seekers. AI-powered interviews and automated emails enhance the credibility of job scams, making it harder for job seekers to identify fraudulent offers.”

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Microsoft has the story.