AI Vs AI: Amid Growing Numbers Of Scams, Here's How We Can Use AI To Defend Against AI

OPINION: The future of digital is dynamically evolving and to stay strong during this storm, businesses need to strategically balance between performance and safety.

Taking proactive action will allow us to mitigate AI risks.

Source : Getty

By Amit Relan

Generative AI has become the new buzzword in town. From tasks like searching, writing, and researching, to creating videos and images, can be done with one click instead of hours. While the technology opened the doors of efficiency and effectiveness for businesses, it has also opened a gateway for fraudsters to commit sophisticated scams. 

For example, it was fairly easy to spot phishing emails or messages earlier due to prominent spelling or grammatical errors. However, with the emergence of AI, fraudsters can generate believable messages which have fewer to no errors, making it harder to identify impersonation. 

AI has eased the content creation process for not just businesses but bots too. Fraudsters can now create a real-looking account on social media and leverage AI to create posts and images. The tasks which required a manual effort earlier can now be done in just a few clicks. 

The sophistication of fraud has increased with the emergence of AI especially during the festive sale season. During the festivities, brands go extravagant with their marketing strategies to capture the attention of their intended audiences. 

With the increased budgets, and more focussed audiences, this is a perfect moment for the fraudsters too. And with AI at their disposal, the fraudsters have sophisticated ways to execute their plans. 

Some of the latest AI scams that have made the headlines:

• Phished emails and messages: They use AI to generate realistic content to impersonate emails and messages impersonating the brand’s messaging. 
• Deepfake images: Deepfake has become the latest scam which is used to manipulate genuine product images to fool customers. 
• Clickbait advertisements: The fraudsters also leverage AI to replicate and create clickbait ads to lure shoppers with “good to be true deals” and discounts. 
• Account takeover: Account takeover is another financial scam that is prevalent during the online sale period. Fraudsters impersonate brand customer support by sharing phished emails, messages or even fake customer care calls. They convince the person to share their personal information which is further used to commit frauds and financial scams. 
• Fake reviews: Another way fraudsters lure users into their trap is by posting fake reviews of products using AI software like ChatGPT. Posting positive reviews artificially inflates the product’s rating and reputation, making it appealing to buyers. This leads to higher sales but eventually, the shoppers get duped into buying low-quality or fake products.

AI vs AI: A Double-edged Sword  

To combat these evolved fraudulent techniques, businesses need to “fight fire with fire”. By employing advanced AI-powered protections, businesses can fight this battle against fraudsters. AI has the potential to identify anomalies in consumer behaviour, differentiate between genuine and impersonated content and provide real-time fraud signals to eliminate the impact of attacks proactively. 

Brands can also leverage technology like open-source intelligence to identify the imposters misusing their brand identity in the digital ecosystem to protect their brand image against phishing scams.

Become Future-Ready

The future of digital is dynamically evolving and to stay strong during this storm, businesses need to strategically balance between performance and safety. By seamlessly leveraging the capabilities of AI to identify early indicators of potential fraud. 

Taking proactive action will allow us to mitigate the risk and ensure a memorable and positive customer experience while protecting user privacy.  

(The author is the Co-founder and CEO, mFilterIt, a new-age data-driven company working to create a safe, transparent, and secure digital ecosystem)

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