While AI can sometimes make our lives easier, these technologies are also a boon for cybercriminals. The latter take advantage of this to deploy large-scale scams with increased efficiency. The latest figures known on the subject are dizzying. Let’s take stock.
When AI helps scammers
Visa notably indicates that the number of credit cards blocked globally for potential fraud during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is up 200% this year compared to 2023. The company very clearly attributes this increase to the tools of AI used for malicious purposes. Same trend at Mastercard, which explains having blocked nine times more fraud attempts for Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday than a year ago.
In fact, American consumers are estimated to have lost $8.7 billion to fraud in the third quarter this year alone, an increase of 14.5% compared to the same period in 2023.
Concretely, hackers use AI to write and send phishing SMS messages or via programs that test a huge quantity of stolen bank card information. Scammers also occasionally use it to create false online advertisements or fake sites that encourage Internet users to share sensitive information.
The response is organized
Faced with this immense challenge, large banks have started to use AI tools for payment validations and to try to prevent fraud. However, and the figures cited above demonstrate that this strategy is not enough.
Public awareness work is necessary in this regard. Indeed, even if scammers use AI, their strategy always remains the same to push us into making mistakes. This involves establishing a sense of urgency among their target. Sometimes they refer to imminent danger or an offer that is too good to be true. This is where we must all react and take the time to reflect before taking action.
The Vitale card, a vein of scams
As we have just seen, scammers do not take vacations, quite the contrary. In France, we recently told you about this scam which takes advantage of the upcoming arrival of the dematerialized vital card. The criminals thus send false emails from Health Insurance inviting the target to renew their health card as quickly as possible.
Victims are then directed to a fake site that invites them to update their personal data. Malicious actors can potentially get their hands on highly sensitive information, such as social security number and banking details. More information in our previous article here.
