The Senate Committee on Aging on Nov. 16 released the eighth edition of its annual fraud-fighting guidance, with this year’s effort taking special notice at scams enabled by adversaries’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
The latest guidance – Fighting Fraud: Top Scams in 2022 – covers some of the top fraud scams seen in 2022, and ways to protect against them.
At a hearing on Nov. 16, committee members made it clear that speedy action is needed to protect Americans from the increasing threats that AI-driven scams pose.
“We’re very proud of the work that goes into this, the staff work by members of the staff on both sides of the Aging Committee, both majority and minority staff,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who chairs the committee.
According to the new guidance, some of the most widely used AI-driven tools used to scam victims include voice cloning technology, deepfakes, and chatbots that impersonate family members who are pleading for financial help.
“We’re working to understand the potential applications that AI scammers have been integrating into their schemes to make their ploy more lifelike and convincing,” said Sen. Casey.
“Deep fakes are AI-developed images that look nearly identical to a real-life person and voice clones can mimic the voice of a loved one and can easily dope consumers and businesses into giving away valuable personal information or money,” he said.
Gary Schildhorn, an attorney and intended scam victim, testified at the hearing about how incredibly realistic some of the AI-driven scams can be, and how difficult they are to combat.
“If we’re harmed by somebody, there’s a remedy either through the legal system or through law enforcement,” he said. “In this case, there is no remedy and that fundamental basis is broken … I hope that this committee could do something about that.”
The latest Fighting Fraud guidance found that the three most-seen fraud attempts include financial services impersonation, healthcare insurance scams, and unsolicited robocalls.
“Any consumer of any age can fall victim to these highly convincing scams … These stories are heartbreaking with victim after victim expressing reactions of fear, despair, disbelief and anger,” Sen. Casey said.
