As artificial intelligence rapidly evolves to make financial scams hyperrealistic, cybersecurity experts warn that the best defense isn't sophisticated detection software.
It's good old-fashioned human skepticism.
While adversarial states like China and Russia leverage AI on a global scale, average Americans are most frequently targeted by cybercriminals looking to exploit personal vulnerabilities for a quick payout, according to cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright.
"Let's go back to around 1860, when Edgar Allan Poe wrote, 'Believe nothing that you hear and only one half that you see,'" Wright told Fox News Digital. "That advice is as good now as it was 160 years ago."
AI VOICE SCAMS CAN CLONE YOUR FAMILY'S VOICE
AI technology has allowed bad actors to automate and scale personalized fraud schemes against everyday citizens. Generative tools eliminate language barriers, draft convincing phishing texts and generate hyperrealistic voice and video clones.
By capturing just a few seconds of audio - often scraped from social media - fraudsters can convincingly replicate the voice of a family member. Wright pointed to the case of Deborah Del Mastro, a California mother who lost thousands of dollars after scammers used AI to clone her daughter's voice to stage a terrifying kidnapping hoax.
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"It's my daughter's voice," Del Mastro recalled during an interview on The CyberGuy Report podcast. "And she's having a panic attack."
Convinced her daughter was in immediate danger, Del Mastro transferred more than $5,000 to the scammers before realizing she had been swindled.
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"When you can fool a mother, that's how good these things are getting," Wright said of the voice-cloning technology. "What they do is use manipulation, influence and deceit. The more urgent I can make it sound, the more you're going to lower your guard and take action."
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Wright, who has trained federal, state and local law enforcement in behavioral analysis, interviewing and interrogation - including teams at the FBI and the National Security Agency - emphasized that every scam relies on basic psychological triggers.
His primary advice for anyone on the receiving end of a suspicious call or message is to pause before reacting.
"We're not storming the beaches at Normandy; you're not going to get arrested," Wright said. "No law enforcement agency sends you an unsolicited text saying you're about to get arrested."
While AI platforms roll out updated security features, scammers continuously find ways around them, making software-based detection a constant moving target.
"We hear about all the different models from xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini. They change models constantly," Wright said.
"So, when the model changes, how effective is [detection software]? We don't know because this stuff is moving so fast. What you see today will be drastically different tomorrow."
