Allow the caller to speak first if you answer a phone call from an unknown number. Someone on the other end of the line could be recording snippets of your voice and later using them to impersonate you convincingly.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers should be wary of scam artists who secretly record people’s voices in order to pose as them and ask victims’ relatives for money.
“You receive a phone call. There’s a panicked voice on the other end of the line. It’s your grandson calling. He claims he’s in big trouble because he wrecked the car and ended up in jail. However, you can assist by sending money. You take a deep breath and contemplate. You’ve probably heard of grandparent scams. But it sounds exactly like him, “On the FTC’s website, consumer education specialist Alvaro Puig wrote.
All you need is 3 seconds
Experts say criminals are using widely available “voice cloning” tools to trick victims into thinking their loved ones are in trouble and need money right away. All it takes is a short clip of someone’s voice, which is sometimes available on the internet — or, if not, can be obtained by recording a spam call — and a voice-cloning app like ElevenLabs’ AI speech software, VoiceLab.
“It’s enough if you made a TikTok video with your voice on it,” Hany Farid, a digital forensics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told CBS MoneyWatch. A voice mailbox recording, for example, would suffice.
He is not surprised that such scams are on the rise. “This is part of a larger picture. We began with spam calls, then moved on to email phishing scams, and finally text message phishing scams. As a result, this is the natural progression of these scams “Farid stated.
“Don’t trust the voice”
According to the FTC, this means that you can no longer trust voices that sound identical to those of your friends and family members.
“Do not believe the voice,” the FTC warns. “Call the person who allegedly contacted you to confirm the story. Use a phone number that you know belongs to them. If you are unable to contact your loved one, try contacting them through another family member or their friends.”
creator of Vall-E Microsoft made reference to the issue, including a disc
creator of Vall-E Microsoft alluded to this issue in a paper demonstrating the technology, including a disclaimer that “it may carry potential risks in misuse of the model, such as spoofing voice identification or impersonating a specific speaker.” If the tool is made available to the general public, it “should include a protocol to ensure that the speaker approves the use of their voice,” according to the paper.
ElevenLabs tweeted in January, “We also see an increasing number of voice cloning misuse cases.”
As a result, the company stated that identity verification is necessary to weed out malicious content and that the technology will be available only for a fee.
How to protect yourself
With bad actors using voice cloning software to impersonate people and commit crimes, it’s critical to be cautious. First and foremost, if you answer a call from an unknown number, allow the caller to speak first. If you say that much, “Hello? What is this person’s name? “They could impersonate you using that audio sample.
Farid stated that he no longer answers his phone unless he expects a call. When he receives calls from supposed family members, such as his wife, that seems “off,” he asks her for a code word that the two of them have agreed upon.
“Now, if we suspect someone else knows it, we even mispronounce it,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “It’s similar to a password that you don’t share with anyone. It’s a fairly simple way around this, as long as you have the courage to ask and don’t panic.”
It’s a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem. The FTC also advises consumers not to trust incoming calls from unknown parties and to confirm calls claiming to be from friends or family members in another way, such as calling the person on a known number or contacting mutual friends.
Furthermore, when someone requests payment via money wire, gift card, or cryptocurrency, these can be red flags.
“Scammers ask you to pay or send money in ways that make it difficult to get your money back,” according to the FTC.
