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Artificial Intelligence making job scams more dangerous

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Updated  February 2, 2023 5:29pm CST
Sullivan's Smart Sense
FOX 26 Houston

Scammers using AI to personalize phishing emails

FOX 26 Consumer Reporter Heather Sullivan has some smart sense on what you should watch out for.

HOUSTON - Artificial intelligence is designed to make life better, creating tools like chat bots on websites, and programs to make more accurate medical diagnoses.  

But educators have had to scramble after learning students can also use artificial intelligence software programs, such as ChapGPT, to write their essays. The platform has even passed the Bar.

What you may not realize is that scammers are using artificial intelligence to create dangerous job scams.

The Federal Trade Commission and cybersecurity experts like Dominic Chorafakis with Akouto warn you to watch out for much more dangerous job offer scams than the usual phishing emails.  

Crooks are using artificial intelligence programs to scrape personal information from social media, LinkedIn, and other sites, then generate and send the victim highly personalized phishing emails and messages.

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"It’s being asked to write a letter to convince that individual to click on a PDF or a link," explained Chorafakis.

He showed us how it works. Using my bio on FOX 26 Houston, he asked a Python artificial intelligence program to write me a job offer letter.

"It mentions your Emmy Awards, your National Murrow Award, and crafts an email to convince you to try to click on a link or open an attachment," he showed us.  

"That’s creepy. That’s really creepy," I reacted.

Click the link and they've got you. They can download malware onto your device, or steal your identity.  

Chorafakis also entered the bio of our Meteorologist Lena Maria Arango into the program.

"Wow," Arango reacted when she saw the letter.

The letter says the fictitious company is looking for a Meteorologist who is passionate about STEM and excited to live in Texas, just like her bio reads.

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"It's definitely scary. For someone looking over it quickly, you could easily get tricked. Especially if you’re multitasking, doing other things, and you are searching for a job," reacted Arango.

Here are some tips from Chorafakis to protect yourself:

  • If you get a job offer from a Gmail or personal email account, rather than a business account, that's a red flag.
  • Never click a link or attachment from an unsolicited email.
  • Search for the company website online, go to its LinkedIn page, or use a job site such as Glassdoor to look it up.

Chorafakis warns that scammers can also use artificial intelligence to take a recording of someone's voice to create a tape of the person saying something else.  

"They will impersonate someone’s boss and ask to transfer money or buy gift cards or something of that nature. There have also been fake kidnapping scams where you’ll get the voice of a loved one saying I've been kidnapped, I’m in danger, you have to transfer money," he said.

He says scammers have used AI to manipulate photos into compromising images, then threaten to release them unless they receive a ransom payment.