Generative AI is making voice scams easier to believe

Generative AI has already lowered the bar for cybercriminals looking to clone someone’s voice and use it in their schemes.

Why it matters: Cybercriminals now need as little as three seconds of someone’s voice to successfully clone it and make it usable in a scam call thanks to generative AI tools, researchers at McAfee have found.

People are already losing money from these incidents: In a recent McAfee survey, 77% of victims in AI-enabled scam calls said they lost money. More than a third of those victims lost more than $1,000.

The big picture: Scam phone calls have often taken the form of mass robocalls pretending to be a health care provider, the Internal Revenue Service or even a provider looking to extend someone’s auto warranty...