AI’s Impact on Cybercrime: What You Need to Know Right Now

OCTOBER 1, 2024

The global cost of cybercrime reached $8 trillion in 2023, amounting to over $250,000 per second. The total annual cost is projected to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025. With the help of AI, fraudsters continue to improve their skills and obtain victims’ identities and money.

AI is helping scammers: 

• Analyze public data, saving time in reconnaissance and enabling precise attacks.
• Leverage chatbots to quickly generate convincing phishing communications by eliminating misspellings and grammatical mistakes.
• Create likenesses of celebrities encouraging victims to make investments in fraudulent companies or projects.

AI enhancements make it difficult for victims to identify legitimate content from fraudulent activity. Following is information on the latest cybercriminal activity to prevent you from falling prey to fraudsters.

AI’s Impact on Phishing

Phishing is when people are tricked into revealing personal information or installing malware on their computers. These attacks have grown in complexity over the past year, thanks to AI tools. AI advancements provide criminals the ability to create video content that accurately portrays faces, voices and mannerisms. Further, AI allows even a novice scammer to create and conduct intricate phishing attacks. 

Phishing videos are dangerous for a multitude of reasons: they sway public opinion, disseminate disinformation, and erode trust. As we rely more on digital communication, phishing will extend beyond the scope of current applications. From financial criminal activity to corporate espionage, deepfake technology poses a threat to organizations, individuals and society.

The most popular phishing crime is the investment scam,  which generated more than $4.6 billion in losses 2023 —  an increase of 21% from 2022. The second most popular crime is the imposter scam. There have been significant increases in reports of both business and government impersonators. The imposter scam generated nearly $2.7 billion in losses in 2023.

AI’s Impact on Vishing

Voice phishing, commonly called vishing, is another threat. A total of 68.4 million Americans (26%) reported losing money to vishing criminal activity in 2023, an increase of 23% from the previous year. Criminals’ tactics continue to evolve, and the success rate of voice scams increased to 77%, leading to stolen credentials, data loss and more.

Vishing attacks have increased by 30% in the past year, resulting in $39.5 billion in losses. To appear legitimate, 10% of scammers use caller ID spoofing. Senior citizens are preferred victims, as crimes against seniors increased 40%. Further, 35% of victims do not report being scammed. You should also be aware that hybrid vishing attacks, a combination of deceptive techniques, have increased by 554%.

How to Avoid a Scam

As technology and criminal activity evolve, it’s important to implement basic security measures to protect your identity and money:

• Be cautious when someone contacts you. Don’t share personal information, usernames, passwords, or one-time codes with others.
• Don't click unknown links. If the link appears in your email, text, or direct message, don’t click on it if you don’t recognize the sender. Even if you recognize the sender, do not click any links if their message seems “off” or out of character.
• Be careful with your phone. Ignore spam calls entirely — do not answer them.
• Enable multifactor authentication whenever possible. 
• Think before you make a purchase or donate. Research the company online first.
• Look for suspicious payment requirements like wire transfers, money orders or gift cards.
• Create a family password to verify it’s really a family member on the phone.

  To learn more about cyber best practices, review USI’s Cyber Checklist: Keep These Best Practices at Your Fingertips.

What to Do If You Fall Victim to a Scam

If you become a victim of a scam, take these steps to prevent additional fraud:

• Lock your credit. You can add fraud alerts, security or credit freezes to prevent access to your accounts.  
• Report the scam and scammer. You can report scammers to the FTC online.
• Contact your bank, credit card issuer, social media platform, email provider, and phone carrier.
• File a police report, which might help with recovering your identity or lost funds.
• Scan your devices. If you clicked on a link or attachment, you may want to check it for malware or viruses.
• Change your passwords. Create stronger passwords or use a passkey option that is available on some websites.  

Even if you are very protective with your information, it could be compromised in a data breach. Sign up for credit monitoring to receive alerts when there are changes to your credit report. You can also sign up for identity theft monitoring services that will locate your personal information on the dark web. Consider identity theft insurance as well, which can help with recovery costs.