Study Finds AI Is Fueling An Alarming Surge In Sophisticated Phishing Scams

The National Consumers League has released its annual fraud report detailing the many scams that most consumers have fallen for. As you'd expect, AI is playing a large role in how the threat landscape has evolved this past year. While the kinds of scams fraudsters are using haven’t changed much, the effectiveness of certain types of scams and the people who fall victim to them have notably shifted.

Phishing and spoofing remain the top choice for criminals, accounting for nearly 35% of all scams reported. However, this type of scam saw an increase of nearly 90% compared to last year. This big jump is due to the rise of AI, which enables attackers to “generate more convincing emails, texts, and cloned voices, making fraudulent messages harder for consumers to detect and easier for criminals to scale.”


When criminals combine phishing with financial or investment scams it can be devastating to the victims, especially for holders of cryptocurrencies. The median loss from these types of scams is a staggering $30,000, and is by far the most financially impactful.

Another notable shift in this year’s report is that it isn’t just older users who are falling victim to these scams. The organization says that “younger adults are filing complaints at a faster rate,” with Millennials representing 40% of scams reported. This age group also saw the biggest increase when compared to the year before. Younger users should take this as warning to be more aware when they’re online and that they can be victimized just as easily as older users.

A piece of advice from the National Consumers league to help keep users safe is that “regardless of the type of scam, many instances of fraud can be avoided by remembering the old rule of thumb: If something seems too good to be true—it probably is.”