AI Will Increase the Quantity–and Quality–of Phishing Scams

With regard to personal scams: Anyone with elderly relatives will know the amount of scamming that they are often targeted with. My parents regularly received calls from purported Microsoft call centres that try to get them to install trojan software. The calls even have callcenter background noise. Other relatives of mine were targeted with the 'grandparent' trick, where someone claims that they are a relative or grandchild in need with all sorts of tricks to get more information out of them (when you ask 'who is this', they will say 'of course you know') by exploiting fears of forgetfulness. All these types of scams can now be automated and targeted towards a broader public with higher barriers of distrust and different emotional triggers. Just imagine someone cloning your voice and calling your children or you receiving a call with the voice of your child. Emotional buttons are pushed that can beat any preparations such as arranged keywords. For these types of attack, training is not really sufficient. We also need regulation and new solutions for protection.

To avoid getting scammed never answer any call or engage with any email you don't expect. As a bonus, ignore anyone at your front door you did not invite

It's great how we just let bad actors ruin every kind of mass communication service because not-securing them is more profitable for the businesses that operate them.