Survey Finds Scam Messages Are Getting Less Obvious: Is AI the Reason?
Fake job offers and bank alerts are the most common messages that people fall for, as per the survey.
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Recent advancements in AI might be making it harder for users to spot fake scam messages.
Know more: A survey of 7,000 adults in seven countries (including India) has found "consumer overwhelm, caused by increasingly believable text, email, and social media scams amid a rising AI-powered scam surge."
The survey was released by McAfee Corp on Wednesday, 8 November.
Over 49 percent of respondents said that "scam messages no longer have typos or errors, and are very believable as a result, and that scam messages are harder to identify because they are often very personal."
Why it matters: “This onslaught of scam messages is a drain on people’s time, energy, and finances," McAfee Product SVP Roma Majumder said.
The bait: The following types of messages are the most believed, according to the report:
"You’ve won a prize!" messages (41%)
Fake missed delivery or delivery problem notifications (23%)
Information about a purchase the recipient didn’t make (24%)
Sign-in and location verification messages (24%)
The switch: Fake job offers (64%) and bank alerts (52%) are the most common types of messages that people fall for, the survey found.
It also found that 82% of surveyed Indians have clicked on or fallen for fake messages.
Bonus: "[Surveyed] Indians receive nearly 12 fake messages or scams each day via email, text or social media daily," the report said.
"An average Indian consumer spends 1.8 hours a week reviewing, verifying or deciding whether a message sent through text, email, social media is real or fake," it added.
Guards up: In order to help people navigate the growing menace of online scams, The Quint has put together a special series of immersive guides called Scamguard.
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