For more than a decade, Brett Johnson worked as a criminal hacker, stealing identities and raking in millions of dollars. Now, the reformed cybercriminal, who's worked as a consultant to the Secret Service, is warning that the next wave of digital scams will be AI-orchestrated and nearly impossible to stop.
Cybercrime is becoming more and more organized, Johnson told Business Insider. In his estimation, this means that the next wave of scams won't be conducted by individual actors, but by organized groups who are using AI to write the scams, fake the evidence, and interact with victims.
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“A criminal now doesn’t have to understand any aspect of the crime," he said. "They can immediately buy tutorials, take live instruction classes, buy anything that they need online, and immediately start being successful and profitable at crime."
The Deepfake Problem
Johnson is particularly concerned about the use of deepfakes.
Some enterprising cybercriminals are already using deepfakes to make fraudulent videos and phone calls, he says. For example, earlier this year, BI reported on a finance clerk who was conned into sending more than $25 million in overseas transfers thanks to video calls that featured deepfakes of his coworkers and bosses.
In fact, deepfakes have become such a problem that the Department of Homeland Security has released reports warning consumers about these imitations and their potential uses.
However, as AI advances, Johnson predicts that deepfakes will become easier to create, allowing their use to be more widespread.
“We get to the point where we’re no longer able to trust anything that we see or hear in an online environment, and that becomes really dangerous,” he told BI.
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The Rise of Scam Farms
Scam farms, or buildings packed with workers who are often forced to participate in these cons, are another major concern for Johnson.
These farms often run like a business, Johnson told BI, with workers completing shifts and supervisors overseeing lower-level participants.
"That’s something we didn’t see back then,” Johnson said about his time as a criminal hacker. "Back then, you did see criminals working together, networking in a co-op type fashion. But these days it’s much more organized."
The Formation of Synthetic Identities
Finally, Johnson told BI that the same AI development that's driving deepfakes is also changing how criminals approach identity theft.
AI is making synthetic identity fraud, which blends real, stolen personal data with invented data, the number one form of identity theft in the world, he estimates.
"It’s 80% of all new account fraud," he told BI. "It’s 20% of all credit card chargebacks, 5% of all credit card debt. It’s huge.”
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Catching this type of fraud is particularly challenging. It's "almost invisible because that person doesn’t really exist,” Johnson says. Often, banks only discover that the fraud even took place after the accounts vanish.
The Importance of Protection
Fortunately, there are a handful of steps people can take to protect themselves against this rise of AI-fueled cybercrimes, Johnson says.
First, it’s essential to understand that every online platform has predators, so users must practice the same sort of situational awareness they would in real-world situations. If something feels off, treat it as though it is.
To that end, he cautions users to be careful what they share on social media. Scammers can take things like your birthday or pet's name and use that information to try and hack you. Avoid sharing answers to sensitive questions, even inadvertently.
Using good password hygiene by not repeating passwords on more than one platform or website, and using multifactor authentication tools are also good ways to prevent hackers from accessing your information.
Finally, if you suspect that you might have been compromised, Johnson suggests freezing the credit of everyone in your home and placing alerts on accounts that would tip you off to suspicious activity.
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