How are scammers using AI, and how do you stop them?

Written lesson · about 3 minutes to read

The short answer

Scammers now use AI to copy a voice from a short recording, write flawless phishing emails, forge invoices and fake video calls. What stops them is a few habits: confirm any change of payment details by calling a number you already have, and slow down anything urgent and secret.

Three things to remember

01Never trust bank details that arrive in a message. Confirm changes by phone on a number you already have.
02Require two people to approve any payment over a set amount, however urgent the request sounds.
03Agree a code word for urgent requests, and treat anything urgent and secret as a warning.

What has changed

Fraud has always relied on pressure and trust, and AI makes both easier to fake. It can write an email with no spelling mistakes, in the tone of your supplier or your bank. It can copy a person's voice from a recording such as a voicemail greeting or a video posted online. It can also produce a fake video call in which someone appears to be your boss.

That removes the old warning signs. Poor spelling, an odd greeting and a clumsy layout used to give scams away. You can no longer count on spotting them, so the protection has to be a process that still works when the message looks perfect.

The scams to expect

The cloned voice call: your bookkeeper gets a call that sounds like you, asking for an urgent transfer and telling her to keep it quiet. The fake invoice: a bill for work nobody ordered, laid out like a real supplier's. The 'our bank details have changed' email: a genuine supplier's name with new account numbers, sent just before a real payment is due.

Then there is the fake video call, where a familiar face asks for a payment or a login, and the polished phishing email that looks like it came from your bank or software provider and asks you to sign in through a link. Every one of them depends on you acting before you think.

Habits that stop them

Any change of payment details is confirmed by calling a number you already hold, from your own records, never one from the message or its signature. Payments over a set amount need two people to approve them. Pick an amount where a loss would hurt, and apply the rule to everyone, including the owner. Matching every supplier invoice to a purchase order also catches a bill for work nobody ordered.

Agree a code word for urgent requests, the way some families do. If the owner rings asking for an urgent payment, the person taking the call asks for the word. Treat anything that is both urgent and secret as a warning in itself. A real supplier or a real boss can wait while you call back.

What to do this week

Write the payment rule on one page: who may approve, the amount above which two people must, and the phone check for any change of bank details. Choose the code word and tell the people who might take an urgent call. Make sure whoever pays the bills knows they can always pause and call back.

Train the team with real examples, including messages that reached your own inbox. Practise the cloned voice call out loud once, so nobody hears it for the first time when it counts. Tell everyone that pausing a payment to make a phone call will never get them in trouble, even when the request turns out to be genuine.

Next lessonWhat is prompt injection?

More in part 3

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