LEHI, Utah (KUTV) — The Lehi Police Department is warning residents about a growing scam in which criminals use artificial intelligence to clone a loved one’s voice and demand ransom.
Police say a mother recently nearly fell victim after receiving a call claiming her child had been kidnapped. When the mother received the alarming call she went straight to her child’s school, where she confirmed her child was safe and the call was a scam. But authorities are warning of this scam that uses the dark side of AI.
A Lehi woman who wants to remain anonymous said scammers cloned her aunts voice.
“I could hear her, and it was definitely her,” said the Lehi woman. “It was no doubt in my mind that was her voice.”
She said scammers made a threatening demand.
“I got a phone call saying that it was my aunt, that he had my aunt in a car, and that I either needed to pay a certain amount of money or she was going to get hurt,” she said.
The woman said the call seemed credible because of a recent conversation she had with her aunt about buying concert tickets online.
“The day before we were talking about her buying tickets off of someone online, and so that’s where I mentally connected the two,” she said.
Lehi police are also warning parents that scammers may clone children’s voices to pressure families into paying quickly.
Pete Ashdown, a cybersecurity expert and owner of X Mission said people should be skeptical of urgent requests money.
“I wouldn’t trust any phone call. I wouldn’t trust any email that is asserting that somebody is in danger, or they need money,” he said.
When asked how people can protect themselves in an AI-driven world, Ashdown said verification is key.
“The simple mode of verification is to give the person in question a phone call,” he said.
Scammers often gather personal data through contact lists and publicly available information, he said.
“A lot of the times they’ll get it by people sharing their contact list,” Ashdown said.
“Information’s all out on the internet, unfortunately it gets sold to the dark web,” he added.
Ashdown said there are ways to test a caller’s legitimacy.
“Ask them some personal questions. The scammers are not likely to have that information,” he said.
Even so, he warned that advancing technology is making scams more convincing.
“It’s only getting better unfortunately, as AI gets better,” Ashdown said.
Police advise families to limit what they post online, set social media accounts to private and report suspicious calls immediately.
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