- Deepfake Calm claims thousands of victims, the report is
- Up to 10% of spam calls are fraudulent
- The best scam for British victims was false HMRC calls
Deepfake fraud calls dominate the landscape of the scam and cost British consumers to millions of books.
A new Hiya report has detailed scams on risk and deep voice in the United Kingdom and abroad, noting how the rise of Generativai means that Deepfakes are more convincing than ever, and attackers can exploit them more frequently-even to target companies and C-Suite executives, which means that Deepfakes of Deepfakes of Deepfakes.
The AI reduces obstacles to criminals to commit fraud and make victims of scams easier, faster and more effective, and the average success of fraudulent appeal costs the British victim 595 – So here is what the report reveals.
Billions of calls
Hiya says that he reported 11.3 billion calls of alleged world spam in the fourth fourth quarter in 2024, – 123 million calls per day. Among these, 22% were marked as harmful calls, and 9% were fraudulent – which may not seem much, but that means that an unexpected call in ten could cost you hundreds if you are not paying attention.
An survey confirmed that 26% of residents of the United Kingdom have received depth calls in the past 12 months – and among those, 40% said they had been scammed, 35% said they had lost money and 32% had stolen personal information.
The subject was mainly financial and banking scams, which represents 11% of the depths, followed closely by insurance, vacation booking, imitations of delivery services (all 8% each).
Overall, Global Anti -SCAM Alliance estimates that an amazing $ 1.03 billion was lost in scams worldwide in 2024 – and Deepfakes de Deepfakes is slowly becoming one of the tools of choice for criminals.
“While we are thinking in the last quarter of 2024, it is obvious that the fraud fueled by AI becomes more sophisticated than ever, constituting a serious threat to consumers and businesses,” said Alex Algard, CEO of Hiya.
The scam in the United Kingdom was an identity theft of the income and customs of His Majesty (HMRC) – in which the victims are informed that a criminal case is abolished against them for tax fraud, and even an arrest warrant was issued on their behalf.
This type of fraud aims to panic the victims, by convincing them that they are in difficulty – exhorting them to put the details of the bank, the financial information or the personally identifiable information (PII).
It is important to note that even if the “only” thing to which a crook has access is your personal data, this always leaves you a serious risk of identity theft, because criminals will contract loans, credit cards or bank accounts on your behalf.
How to protect yourself
The report comes shortly after another recent study has shown that 2,000 people showed up to Deepfake content, only two of them have managed to get a perfect score – so everyone should be on their care.
Deepfakes are essentially scams in social engineering – the natural evolution of phishing attacks, which are often the identity of banks, popular services, colleagues or even family to try to deceive victims to click on malicious ties, digitize dangerous QR codes or put their personal information.
Deepfake voice and video are undoubtedly more dangerous, as they can be seriously convincing. We recommend that you establish a safe word with your family and close friends (anyone who could call you in case of an emergency) – so that you can be confident that you are talking about who you think.
Apart from friends and family, beware of someone who claims to be your bank, or a software company, or any business with services that you use regularly. If your “bank” or HMRC calls, search for their number, call it and ask to be transferred to the same person.
Do not give your information to someone by phone and make sure you change your passwords regularly and keep passwords unique for each site that contains sensitive information. If you need advice, we have compiled a list of the best tips for creating a secure password.
