AI Is Helping Scammers Outsmart You—and Your Bank - WSJ

The Nugget

AI is enabling scammers to become more sophisticated and convincing, making it harder for individuals and banks to detect fraudulent activities.

Make it stick

🛡️ Your spidey senses are no longer enough to protect you from scammers in the age of AI.
🔒 AI tools allow scammers to impersonate trusted individuals and adapt their schemes in real-time, making them more convincing.
🤖 Fraudulent activities are evolving with the help of AI, targeting larger groups and using more personal information to deceive victims.
💸 Banks are leveraging AI to monitor user behavior and detect fraudulent activities, but the last line of defense against scams will always be the individual.

Scammers are now leveraging AI tools to write better messages, create voice imitations, and impersonate individuals effectively.
AI enables scammers to target larger groups and use more personal information, making it harder to distinguish scams from real interactions.
Criminals are bypassing traditional scam indicators like poor grammar and malicious links by using AI-generated fake identification and sophisticated tactics.

Fraudsters are employing social-engineering attacks with AI to tailor scams to individual targets, leading to record losses.
Scam victims often fall for schemes due to emotional vulnerability, false urgencies, and personalized messages created using AI tools.

Banks are adopting AI tools to monitor user behavior, flag unusual activities, and detect potential fraud attempts.
Security officials recommend turning on two-factor authentication and pausing during suspicious transactions to avoid falling victim to scams.

AI allows scammers to quickly test passwords across platforms and automate various aspects of their fraudulent schemes.
Banks are using AI to analyze factors like typing cadence and behavior patterns to detect potential fraud in real-time.

"Your spidey senses are no longer going to prevent you from being victimized." - Matt O’Neill
“Somebody who tells you to pay by crypto, cash, gold, wire transfer or a payment app is likely a scam.” - Lois Greisman
"Fraudsters are reaping more money from victims of all ages, with people reporting record losses to scams in recent years."
"Financial institutions are taking new steps—and tapping AI themselves—to shield your money and data."
"Criminals used to have to guess or steal passwords through phishing attacks or data breaches, often targeting high-value accounts one by one. Now, scammers can quickly cross-reference and test reused passwords across platforms."

This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.