AI Powers Surge in Social Media, Dating App Scams Targeting Vulnerable Victims
• AI is fueling a boom in fraud on dating and social media apps by enabling criminals to target more victims at scale • Scammers increasingly pose as people in war zones or crisis situations to elicit funds from sympathetic victims • "Bogus boss" scams involve elaborate fake websites and documents to defraud companies, investors, and agencies • Victims can lose entire life savings and suffer psychologically, with some cases ending in suicide • Europol believes Europe's relative wealth makes it a prime target, with AI making large-scale attacks faster and easier