As We All Knew & Expected — AI Scams on the Rise

Artificial intelligence can very easily be used to impersonate real people. And if you’re in a hurry, or untrained, or don’t know the person being impersonated that well, you can be very easily — and expensively — fooled.

A report from the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (ITRC) said between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, over 9,000 crimes were reported. Of the 9,038 crimes reported, a staggering 52% said it involved a misuse of their personal information. Of that number, 35% said the attack was a compromise of personal information.

ITRC CEO Mona Terry said the most compromises — 22% —  were checking accounts.

“The growth in impersonation scams shows a shift in the tactics used by bad actors,” she said. “Criminals are increasingly leveraging AI to impersonate well-known businesses and financial institutions, making it harder for individuals to tell the difference between legitimate communication and fraudulent ones. Education about and protecting your identity from these evolving scams is important.”

The ITRC also broke down the numbers:

• 76% were victims of once incident
• 14% experienced 2
• 6% were victims of 3
• 4% had 4 or more attacks

Here’s more:

• The number of people experiencing multiple identity related incidents rose from 15% to 24% in the 12 month period
• Impersonation has the most number of scams at 34%
• Job and employment hit 10%
• Google Voice say a 9% hike

The report also noted who the scammers are using AI to impersonate.

• 51% of the scammers impersonated a business
• 32% said they were a federal or state agency
• 21% said they were from a financial institution

“Business impersonation primarily involved spoofed emails and internet searches for companies that led to fraudulent customer service numbers and/or websites, while financial impersonation largely involved inbound calls to victims,” the report said.

Here are the most common pieces of personal information affected:

Social Security numbers — 9%

Driver’s license numbers — 7%

Payment card numbers — 4%

Account numbers — 4%

Source link: PropertyCasualty360.com — https://bit.ly/4kzaPVX