Artificial intelligence is making scams increasingly difficult to detect, and one cybersecurity expert is urging people to be wary of sophisticated phishing emails, voice-cloning schemes and other online schemes. Nicola Vizioli, a cybersecurity partner with EY Canada, says AI is making it harder to discern what is real and what is a hoax. “AI is making familiar scams look very much more convincing,” Vizioli told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Tuesday. “It’s making familiar scams more sophisticated and can be reproduced at scale.” How are scammers using AI? As Vizioli explains, scam emails used to be fairly simple to detect as they would often contain basic spelling errors or look noticeably different than messages from legitimate sources. Today, he says, that’s no longer the case. “Nowadays, what we’re seeing is that the emails are practically perfect. They look and feel very convincing as well,” he said. With the assistance of AI, scammers can make convincing reproductions of full websites and even produce fake reviews, Vizioli says. “Everything is meant to be very convincing and is meant to bring the customer to click on a link to share their payment information, to share their passwords,” he said. In addition to fake emails or hoax websites, Vizioli says scammers are also using AI to clone voices and impersonate others, a practice that is becoming increasingly common. “With AI, cloning of the voice has become fairly easily and fairly precise,” Vizioli said. How can you protect yourself? To protect yourself, Vizioli suggests proceeding with caution. For instance, before making an online purchase, first take a moment to consider how you found your way to the website. Rather than trusting links that appear in your social media feed or your inbox, Vizioli recommends going directly to the retailer’s website or using their official applications. “It’s when a user clicks on a link on social media, for example, when there is a discount that looks too good to be true, that’s where I would start to be careful and verify where I am as a shopper,” he said. For impersonation scams that utilize AI cloning technology, Vizioli says there is one tell-tale sign. “There’s one thing that most cloned calls or fictitious calls have in common: is that there’s always an urgency. There’s always an urgency to act. There’s always a sense of panic as well,” he said. If you receive one of those calls, Vizioli says the best course of action is to hang-up and call the person back at the number you have stored for them. “Not just simply redialing but really using the number that you have in your contact list,” Vizioli said. “Call that person back and have a conversation to see if what they’re saying is really them and validating the identity that way.”
