Sift's report shows concerning increase in AI-related fraud

Following the release of its Q2 2024 Digital Trust Index, Sift found that nearly two-thirds of fraud and risk professionals think that their business was targeted by artificial intelligence (AI) fraud, with over 50% of them stating that this type of fraud occurs daily or weekly. In addition, the development and adoption of AI tools, such as publicly accessible chatbots, allows cybercriminals to organise fraud attacks against individuals and businesses. This is also showcased by the 22% increase in blocked user-generated scam content from the Sift Data Network between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024.

Moreover, typos and syntax issues, which allowed individuals to identify a scam, are now less common due to GenAI tools like ChatGPT which enable fraudsters to create convincing written content. Even more concerning is that fraudsters started to employ phishing emails, photo, and video manipulation, as well as voice cloning to bypass traditional fraud detection techniques. This can lead to substantial financial and reputational risks to businesses regardless of size.

According to Sift’s officials, fraud actors are increasingly adopting AI as a solution for improving their attacks and businesses must invest in the same technology to counter the threats posed by AI itself.  In addition, Sift’s report uncovered that 73% of consumers are confident that they can identify a scam that was created utilising AI. However, nearly a third of consumers stated that someone tried to defraud them with AI, while one in five are falling for these scams.

Furthermore, in its report, Sift found that 84% of Millennials say they are very or somewhat confident they can identify an AI scam, compared to 81% of Gen Z, 70% of Gen X, and 53% of Baby Boomers. Additionally, 21% of consumers were successfully phished, while 69% of them said that it has become more difficult to detect scams.

As part of the report, Sift assessed 123 global fraud and risk professionals through an online survey, and on behalf of the company, Researchscape International polled 1,066 adults across the US using the same method in May 2024.

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