Protect Your Family from High-Tech Trickery

Mankind’s history is littered with stories and accounts of people betraying or attempting to hoodwink their fellow man. Biblical accounts include Cain’s murder of his younger brother Abel, Jacob’s trickery of his elder brother Esau, Delilah’s attempts to undermine the mighty Samson, and the betrayal of Jesus Christ by His disciple Judas. And in many cultures around the world, stories of trickeries both failed and successful fill entire anthologies.

Of course, most such accounts are rarely meant to endorse or promote this behavior, but the point is nevertheless made: Fraud and treachery go way back. And the argument can be made that human nature has not changed over time; only the means by which it is expressed. You might say high tech but still low life!

The advent and sudden proliferation of A.I. serves as a cutting-edge illustration. It is no surprise that A.I. is being used today for nefarious purposes, mainly picking pockets from afar. A.I.-fueled attacks globally net over $1 trillion annually and affected some 100 million Americans last year alone.

A.I.-fueled attacks mimic the people you trust. This is done by voice cloning, deepfakes, and generative A.I. For the sake of clarity,

• Voice cloning is the production of a digital duplicate of a person’s distinct vocal characteristics. It uses a person’s speech patterns, accents, and breathing nuances, and it often requires only a three-second audio clip to get started. Cybercriminals use voice cloning to impersonate celebrities, people in authority, and even friends and family in order to commit various forms of fraud.
• Deepfakes are a form of A.I. that is often used to produce convincing, deceptive images and video.
• Generative A.I. is a type of artificial intelligence used to create new content in response to prompts. Its algorithms are trained on text and visual and audio data. Generative A.I. has been used to create video and audio recordings that give the appearance of something real.

An FBI report dated December 3, 2024, detailed how criminals use A.I.-generated text to appear believable to a reader with the intent to commit fraud, disguising common indicators of fraud schemes. They also use A.I.-generated images to create believable social media profile photos, identification documents, and other images in support of their claims. To make matters worse, A.I.-generated vocal cloning allows them to impersonate well-known public figures or personal relatives. These short audio clips can impersonate a loved one’s voice to sound like a close relative in a crisis asking for immediate financial assistance, thereby allowing scammers to obtain access to bank accounts of unsuspecting individuals.

Ileana van der Linde, Head of Cyber Advisory at JP Morgan, recently shared information from a report issued by the FBI: “Cyber threats and fraud scams drive record monetary losses due to their sophisticated nature, amounting to losses in over $16.6 billion in 2024, a 33% increase over the previous year.”

Van der Linde advises not to “assume a phone call, email, text message or video clip is genuine, as phone numbers can be spoofed to appear legitimate, especially if the individual is requesting sensitive information or making high-pressure demands…. If you receive a call from someone claiming to represent a certain organization and you are unsure, hang up and call an official number.”

There is a simple but effective layer of protection recommended by the FBI. This protection doesn’t involve downloading any software, and there is no monthly fee—in fact, it’s free. A powerful line of defense against potential perpetrators is to create a secret word or phrase known only to your family and most trusted friends, by which you can verify their identity. This simple technique against fraud has the potential to abruptly stop nefarious callers in their tracks, like an  attention-grabbing red flare shot across the sky.

Regrettably, there are too many diabolical methods of deception in our world today for us to count. On the other hand, however, there is one true defense against them all, and that is prayer—specifically, praying to the real God of the Bible. You can implement this layer of protection in your life today, and you can start by reading or ordering online the free study guide Twelve Keys to Answered Prayer—available right here at TomorrowsWorld.org.