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By this weekend, we will be halfway through 2025. It’s mind-boggling how quickly the year passes by when you take a moment to reflect. But also, how scammers can consistently create powerful, malicious tools using AI in high volumes.
AI Implemented in Everyday Life
AI in the last 2 years has both been introduced into our daily lives but has also made it difficult to differentiate between real and artificial intelligence. While AI made it easier to complete tedious tasks in an efficient manner, your personal information might be in even greater jeopardy if you are not careful. Or depending on your industry, it can even threaten your long-term job security.
In this blog today, we are going to be going over generative AI, how to spot a deepfake, and how to be cautious while using Chat GPT.
It’s understandable that you would want AI to help enhance your wording for an email to send to a client, provide suggestions for what to do on you and your friends birthdays or strategize how to make social media content. But did you know that Chat GPT and scammers can exploit your data from just 1 Chat GPT search? That’s why you must be oh so careful with the information you place on its servers as unfortunately your data is available online in the form of social media and public databases.
You might be asking yourself, ‘what are the necessary steps I can do to protect myself, loved ones and even business endeavors’?
One of the first things you can do on a conscious level is be mindful of the types of questions you ask Chat GPT. Do NOT put any information regarding your personal, financial, passwords or anything else that could potentially identify you in the scenario of bad actors searching for information.
An example happened to one of our loved ones that was experiencing some technical issues on their laptop and decided to ask chat GPT to provide them with a customer service number to further resolve the issue. In most instances, you would do a Google search for a customer service number, but this user asked Chat GPT and was provided with an incorrect customer service number. When they called them, the person on the other line of this number Chat GPT provided began to pressure the user to download software they never heard of to their computer. Thankfully, they realized something was off about this interaction with customer service. Some things they noticed right away were the customer service line for this picked up the phone right away when usually it takes a few moments to connect with a live representative. The second red flag they noticed was having the representative insistently pressuring them to implement this software instead of working together to resolve the issue. The next red flag following was the representative asking for their personal information to ‘access’ their account.
On the bright side, they realized in time something was wrong and hung up, but this instance is also a stark reminder that you must not blindly trust the information Chat GPT gives to you. Chat GPT can make mistakes, and those mistakes can have malicious consequences if not overlooked.
After the interaction, confused, they asked Chat GPT why they gave them a scam number instead of the official customer service number. To which they got a short response apologizing and then following up with “Thank you for the feedback”. While the idea is nice to have AI do the work for you and provide information within seconds, it’s still better as a human to do your own research to not end up in these types of scenarios.
Protecting Your Socials for Personal & Business
As bad actors can pull information about you through public online information, and if you have multiple social media accounts, it’s best to review and tighten your privacy settings for peace of mind. You can limit how much the public has access to you by putting your social media accounts on private, be selective on who you let follow your social media pages and remove third party apps to minimize exposure. A lot of younger folks tend to use third party apps to monitor who has unfollowed them. In hindsight social media platforms have been cutting down these types of third-party apps, but they will find their way to still use them.
For additional safety using social media, you can create a designated email account that is used for social media use only or for opting out for signups, newsletters, etc. This can reduce anxiety if you ever find yourself in the scenario where you are hacked or locked out of your own account and their information is limited about you.
Aside from social media privacy settings, these practices can also be beneficial to your business’ security. Our Ekaru team specializes in implementing antivirus software across multiple devices for our clients. We ensure 24/7 monitoring on all devices in case if there is unusual activity it can be dealt with right away, so you can focus on all the nitty gritty of business decisions.
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/scammers-can-exploit-your-data-from-just-1-chatgpt-search
AI and Deepfakes Growing At a Massive Scale
Let's be honest, AI deepfakes can be absolutely terrifying for everyone involved. They can take personal information from others, but they also can feed AI tools false information to confuse the masses unable to decipher what is truth and what is misinformation. It’s getting to the point where AI is now being used to build malware in the form of phishing kits, scripts, and even overriding AI rule systems to create malicious malware and steal information. With all these malicious tools, the bad actors end up with logs filled with usernames, passwords, and other personal information on hundreds of individuals. It’s important to be careful out there especially when there has been reports of billions of passwords leaked online, forcing others to reset their passwords.
In regard to deepfakes, there have even been instances where famous celebrities have had their faces placed on bodies that were not their own posted on X-rated websites. Almost always, they have used legal action to take these down. For everyday people that may not have the resources to take legal action, seeing a deepfake of you anywhere without your consent can be dehumanizing to witness and feelings of shame and embarrassment.
Another instance of deepfakes that isn’t always placing your face on a body that isn’t yours are phone calls, or text messages impersonating someone important in your life, work or community. The threat of deepfakes powered by Generative AI has grown on a massive scale within the digital landscape.
There has even been an instance where one of our colleagues received a text message from our boss asking to give them an urgent call. Some red flags that appeared were the urgency, an unsaved number from someone impersonating their boss. In this case, we put our security practices in action. Such as reaching out to confirm it was them that sent the message, (spoiler alert it was not). Second, ignoring and blocking the message from further contact. Third, notifying teams of this incident to spread awareness in the case it could potentially happen to other colleagues, be aware. 
Now, a lot of the above information can understandably cause others to be scared and far more cautious when it comes to technology. However, our Ekaru team is here to help you have a concise understanding of how you can protect yourself and your business from falling victim to cybercrimes across all its sophisticated attempts.
For individuals and businesses, we provide specialized monitoring for any suspicious activity that way when something occurs it is reported right away instead of lingering in your system undetected. We recommend password managers to prevent the us of passwords across multiple accounts what it is personal or for business, and recommending MFA to better protect yourself in the case of a phishing attempt.
Ekaru Is Here to Help
While our team will help implement all the necessary steps to protect and monitor your devices, we thrive off spreading awareness of cyber security to our amazing clients and anyone looking to improve their current cybersecurity practices. We spread awareness by providing monthly webinars with other big names in the IT Cybersecurity Industry such as LastPass, Fifth Wall Solutions, Threat Locker and so many more.
Want to learn how you can be ahead of the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity to protect yourself and your businesses devices? Please reach out to us today! We are always here and happy to help.