When a familiar voice is the scam

When a familiar voice is the scam

Jennifer DeStefano had stopped by her daughter’s dance studio when her phone rang from a number she did not recognise. The voice on the line was her fifteen-year-old daughter Brianna, sobbing, saying “Mom, I messed up.” Then a man’s voice took over. He demanded a million dollars, then dropped it to fifty thousand in cash, and told DeStefano exactly how the handoff would work. Except Brianna was fine: she was away on a ski trip, safe, nowhere near these people. The voice was an AI clone, and for the length of that call DeStefano had no way to know. As she testified later to the US Senate, it was not just Brianna’s voice. It was her cries, her sobs, the specific way she sounded when she was frightened. The old “that does not quite sound like them,” instinct is getting squeezed out fast: modern voice cloning needs roughly three seconds of someone’s voice to produce a convincing replica.

Gobble's Take: If a caller sounds like family and wants urgency, slow down before you act.
Source: The Grandparent Scam Got an Upgrade

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• 25 million is what a Hong Kong company lost when criminals used deepfake video to impersonate a CFO during a video conference call.
• AI scams are no longer just fake emails; they can sound like family
• Romance scams now come with an AI assistant
• Deepfake voice fraud is hitting families right where they trust most
• Phishing has gone everywhere people already talk