There’s been a worldwide buzz about AI chatbots lately. We’ve been having fun asking ChatGPT about different things, trying to find out how much it can actually do, and even having it tell us jokes.
But cybercriminals are having a different type of fun by finding ways to use AI to trick their victims. And their attacks have become more successful because AI can make their phishing scams harder to spot.
As always, we advise to be cautious with emails by reading them carefully, looking for spelling and grammatical errors, and checking links to make sure they’re legit before clicking on them. This is still great advice we should all continue to follow.
But here’s the catch, and why AI is making phishing scams more dangerous: Most of us can spot a phishing scam because they tend to look like they’ve been written by a robot. With AI, a robot is writing them, so ironically, the phishing emails created by a chatbot seem to feel more “human”.
That means you’re more likely to fall for these scams. So we all need to even more cautious than before.
Hackers are “enhancing” their usual phishing lure by using AI to eliminate spelling and grammatical mistakes and generate entire email threads, making their scams seem more believable.
Developers are working on creating security tools that can detect messages generated by AI, but they’re still a long way off from being complete and ready for release.
In the meantime, we all need to be extra vigilant with emails, especially any you weren’t expecting. Make sure to:
- Check the address the email is sent from.
- Double-check with the sender (but not by replying to the email!).
- Hover over any links to reveal the destination URL. Better yet, don’t click on a link in an email – type in the website address in your browser instead.
- If you have even the slightest bit of doubt, assume it’s a scam.
Always remember, the experts at Merit Technologies are here to help. If you’d like further advice or security awareness training on phishing scams for your team, contact us.
Published with permission from Your Tech Updates.
