Hang up and use a secret code to fight against AI smartphones attacks, explains the FBI.
Update, March 22, 2025: This story, initially published on March 20, was updated with the details of a new application of the Europol law on the evolution of the DNA of crime and the use of AI attacks, as well as new information with regard to the current cyber-menices with which Gmail users are confronted and the FBI of warning to use a secret code which was published in response.
There has not been a shortage of security threat warning fueled by AI in recent weeks from the code which can compromise the identification information of your chrome password management with Critical attacks of AI cost little than $ 5 to create. But it is the Deepfake attacks that strike users of smartphones, despite the best efforts of Google and others to defend against them, which are the most worrying. Indeed, these ongoing attacks are so convincing that the security experts, including the FBI, have issued warnings to the public to hang up now and create a secret code by protective. Here’s what you need to know and do.
FBI and security experts warn against AI smartphones attacks
Although you can immediately think of face exchange videos with regard to Deepfake attacks, it is far from the full image of the threat. If you want to see how good you are to locate a Deepfake face, there is a quick test that you can pass, but be informed that it is much more difficult than you think. The counterfeits, motivated by AI, really started to attract public attention after writing a viral article in 2024 concerning a security expert who was almost fooled, with potentially very expensive consequences.
Adrianus Warmenhoven, an expert in cybersecurity at NordVPN, has now added to the voice warning iPhone and Android threat users. “Telephone crooks are increasingly using vocal cloning tools for their fraudulent activities, because this type of software has become more affordable and effective over time,” said Warmenhoven. A common approach, and which we currently see in the current attacks is to use this Deepfake audio to “approach the family members of the individual they pretend to be identity,” said Warmenhoven, “and extort money by simulating an emergency”.
Referring to a Truecaller’s October 2024 report and the Harris survey, America
Under attack: the changing landscape of spam and swindle calls in AmericaWarmenhoven stressed surprising statistics that when he came to the United States, in the previous 12 months, the total number of victims of scam exceeded 50 million and the losses were estimated at $ 452 per victim. “As Deepfakes considerably change the landscape of telephone calls on the scam,” warned Warmenhoven, “it is crucial to ensure that everyone in the family understands what vocal cloning is, how it works and how it could be used in scams, like the empission of a family member to ask for money or personal information.”
“Deepfakes will become unrecognizable,” warned Siggi Stefnisson, chief technical director of Cyber Security of the trust-based security platform, whose brands include Norton and Avast. “AI will become sufficiently sophisticated so that even experts cannot say what is authentic.”
Europol joins the FBI in the warning of threats of attack powered by AI
Confirming that the DNA of organized crime is going through a period of change, Catherine de Bolle, the Executive Director of Europol, said that they are now technology -oriented criminal companies that are “more adaptable and more dangerous than ever”. The new Evaluation of the threat of European organized organized crime Emitted the warning that crime is accelerated by AI and emerging technologies. “AI is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of organized crime,” he said. By quickly operating these new technologies, using accessibility, adaptability and sophistication of AI today, threat actors have added a powerful attack tool to their arsenal. “These technologies automate and develop criminal operations, which makes them more evolving and more difficult to detect,” warned the evaluation.
The AI is increasingly used in online fraud regimes, said Europol, motivated by social engineering attacks which can cause access to large amounts of data, including stolen personal information. “Almost all forms of serious and organized crime have a digital imprint,” said the evaluation, “whether as a tool, target or facilitator”.
“The value of AI is that it makes things faster,” said Evan Dornbush, a former Cybersecurity Expert from NSA, “no more creative or inventive or persistent.” Dornbush is not wrong. The attackers can create sophisticated and credible messages in twice and, above all, continue to refine them automatically so that each iteration is more credible than the previous one. “But the speed is not relevant if we cannot disrupt the attacker’s profit potential,” concluded Dornbush; “AI decreases the costs of criminals, and the community needs new ways to reduce their payments, increase their operating budgets, or both.”
“Breaking this new penal code means dismantling the systems that allow these networks to prosper,” confirmed Bolle, “targeting their finances, disturbing their supply chains and awaiting their use of technology”.
The FBI Deepfake Smartphone Audio Attack Adminitigy Counsers
As I reported on December 7, 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation also warned the public of these attacks. Indeed, the FBI went so far as to publish the alert number of the public service I-120324-PSA addressing this subject. The FBI and Warmenhoven both recommend the same attenuation, as brutal and surprising as it may seem, hang up and create a secret code known only from your family and close friends.
Warmenhoven has also informed that people should be careful about the content of their publications on social networks. “Social media is the largest resource accessible to the public of voice samples for cybercriminals,” warned Warmenhoven. This means that everyone should be wary of what he publishes in terms of which he could be used to have a negative impact on their security “through the rise of deep buttocks, vocal cloning and other scams activated by AI tools”.
To mitigate the risk of these sophisticated and increasingly dangerous AI attacks against iPhone and Android users, the FBI said that people should immediately hang up on the telephone if they receive a call for a member of the family or a close friend asking money in such a way and checking the identity of the person who calls for direct means. The FBI has also warned that all public members should create a secret word or sentence that is known for you and your close contacts and use it to identify an appellant pretending to be someone in difficulty, no matter how convincing they look. And convincing that they will be because the Deepfake call will be based on public audio clips, from social media videos, for example, which are then fed by AI tools to produce, in fact, this person saying everything that is typed.
