Synthetic identity fraud now costs banks $6 billion a year, making it the fastest-growing financial crime in the US Criminals are able to exploit personal data breaches to fabricate “Frankenstein IDs.” Cheap credential-stuffing software can be used to test thousands of stolen credentials across multiple platforms in a matter of minutes. And text-to-speech tools powered by AI can bypass voice authentication systems with ease.
“Technology is both catalyzing and transformative,” says John Pitts, head of industry relations and digital trust at Plaid. “Catalyzing in that it has accelerated and made more intense longstanding types of fraud. And transformative in that it has created windows for new, scaled-up types of fraud.”
Fraudsters can use AI tools to multiply many times over the number of attack vectors—the entry points or pathways that attackers can use to infiltrate a network or system. In advance-fee scams, for instance, where fraudsters pose as benefactors gifting large sums in exchange for an upfront fee, scammers can use AI to identify victims at a far greater rate and at a much lower cost than ever before. They can then use AI tools to carry out tens of thousands, if not millions, of simultaneous digital conversations.
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