How criminals are manipulating AI to target dating apps
Newsy
In 2023, 64,000 people reported a romance scam, and losses to fraudulent online suitors hit a staggering $1.14 billion.
Love is in the air this week for Valentine’s Day and as people take their search for love online, the FBI is warning them to beware of romance scams.
In 2023, 64,000 people reported a romance scam, and losses to fraudulent online suitors hit a staggering $1.14 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The report found the median loss per victim was $2,000, the highest reported median loss when compared to any form of impostor scam.
Over the years, artificial intelligence has evolved and become more accessible to the public, giving criminals new options to cast a wider net and target more victims on social media and dating apps.
Kevin Gosschalk, the founder and CEO of Arkose Labs, a company providing support and technology to stop large-scale automated attacks, told Scripps News that con artists are targeting dating apps, and it’s becoming more difficult for systems put in place by companies to detect the phony profiles given the more sophisticated technology.
“A new trend we're seeing is they're using AI-generated technology, which lets them craft automatically very personal, very normal looking messages, and it also has the ability to converse with victims as well,” Gosschalk said.
