AI Fraud is About To Get Unreal

The real problem isn’t AI fooling humans. It’s much worse.

“Joe, do you know how to remove Anydesk?”

Uh-oh.

The scene I’m about to set up couldn’t be more cliché.

The scam happened to my mother-in-law. It’s the scam where a friendly email notifies her of a payment on her subscription service and asks her to call a number if she suspects an error. Then she winds up talking to an even friendlier guy in a foreign country.

What happened next surprised me though. Right before it scared the crap out of me.

Not Today, Scammer

I need to give my mother-in-law a lot of credit here. She had actually just paid a final payment on the exact service the scam email was referencing, so she called to clear up what appeared to be an everyday duplicate charge. I get those emails once a month because Capital One can’t figure out I have twins.

Also, the minute she heard “gift cards,” she flashed back to a conversation we had a while ago about the “blue-haired guy on the YouTubes” and she immediately hung up.

But not before she installed Anydesk. So we uninstalled Anydesk and I made sure she had opened no other vulnerabilities. It took a while but no harm…