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Tom Purcell: The day a cyberscammer attacked my mother

3 0
yesterday

I got to my 89-year-old mother’s home just in the nick of time.

She’d been using her computer when her screen locked and a large image appeared:

“You’ve been compromised,” the red letters said. “Call Microsoft immediately at 800-xxx-xxxx!”

She was on the phone with the fake tech support agent when I arrived.

Remember when email scams were easy to identify?

Misspellings, broken English and awkward phrases, such as “kindly send to me,” were dead giveaways.

Scammers use AI to produce flawless emails that mimic your bank, your boss or a government agency — or clone a loved one’s voice from a short audio clip.

Consider these recent real-life frauds:

After receiving a frantic call from her daughter, Bay Area mom Deborah Del Mastro wired $5,400 to “kidnappers.” But her daughter wasn’t kidnapped. Scammers used an AI app to clone her voice.

In Michigan, Brian and Wendy VanDoeselaar wired $66,026.92 to their loan officer — but the account was fake and the loan officer’s voice was also an AI clone. They lost the money and the property.

A finance employee at construction giant Arup joined a Zoom meeting with his CFO and other colleagues, who told him to wire funds to a new........

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