"It started with a seemingly routine reminder for Nancy Hall to update her Norton antivirus software.
The 69-year-old Philadelphia resident sat down at her laptop to file her taxes recently and was prompted to call a number that was said to be the software company’s customer support. She had been hacked, the message said.
“It said, ‘you must call Microsoft right away, or else, you’re in danger of losing everything,’” Hall said.
A man on the line claimed to be in talks with her bank, saying hackers managed to download child pornography to her computer and transfer $18,000 to Russian accounts overnight.
He told Hall he was transferring her to the fraud department at her bank, where she spoke to someone who knew details about her local branch. After verifying personal details, that person asked her to come in to make a cash withdrawal that she could then use to purchase cryptocurrency at a specific ATM.
The pair told her she was at threat of being arrested by Homeland Security for what was found on her laptop unless she obliged.
After a few stressful hours of trying to sort out the situation, something clicked, Hall said — a friend was scammed out of $800,000 in retirement savings last year after being persuaded to purchase cryptocurrency in an emergency. Hall hung up the phone, then blocked the number when it continually called her back.
Financial crimes, or scams like these, have always been around, experts say. But the rise of artificial intelligence, access to sensitive information on the dark web, and a lack of federal oversight for these crimes means it’s never been easier to be a scammer, security experts say.
“AI has made these things so believable,” said Melissa O’Leary, a Portland, Maine-based partner and chief strategy officer at cybersecurity firm Fortalice Solutions. “Sometimes you can’t tell, ‘is this legitimate or not?’”
Hall’s experience mirrors many of the thousands of well-established attempts at tech-enabled financial crimes currently underway in the U.S. Scammers often pose as trusted corporations, government departments or as someone a victim knows. Many companies that have been spoofed, like Norton, put out warnings about these scams."
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"How AI is playing a role
AI has lowered the barrier for setting up a scam, O’Leary said. Those looking to lure someone to wire money or purchase cryptocurrency need some space on a server or in the cloud, and some sort of infrastructure to reach out to victims. Many programs that can be used to fake a persona, to send out mass text messages or phishing links are as easy as downloading an app.
“It’s almost a step by step for someone who wants to make a quick buck,” O’Leary said.
Large language models and AI chatbots can easily be prompted to sound like someone else, and give non-English speakers a much easier ability to communicate, O’Leary said.
Radolec has seen an uptick in AI bots being used to gain credentials to company databases or pay systems. Bots can hold legitimate conversations with a target to build rapport, and plant phishing scams to gain passwords in standard documents.
“The next thing you know, you can log in as me,” Radolec said.
From there, scammers can divert paychecks to offshore accounts, sell data on the dark web or plant further phishing attempts in internal systems." [More]:
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/20/repub/with-ai-at-their-disposal-financial-scammers-are-on-the-rise/
