An expert warns Finns about a scary-sounding scam that is deceptively easy to fall for. He especially recommends that families agree on a common password.
Data security expert and information writer Petteri Järvinen warns in X about the type of fraud, which to most people still sounds like pure science fiction.
– It is to be expected that scammers will start cloning the voice and calling parents in the name of the child, for example, asking for money, Järvinen states.
Data security expert Petteri Järvinen warns of scams that use cloned voice. Adobe Stock
Scams in which children’s parents are tried to extort money while pretending to be children are not new. We have previously warned about messages sent from strange numbers in which criminals pretend to be offspring asking for money.
In one case, a Finnish woman sent criminals almost 10,000 euros after receiving a message from a fraudster posing as her daughter.
Free advice from an expert
In X, Järvinen gives a free and quite effective tip that you can use to protect yourself from such scams. According to him, you should start preparing now.
– Agree on an internal family password that you can use to identify the real caller if needed, he recommends.
Järvinen’s tip can also be used for suspicious text messages.
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Just a few seconds can be enough
In Maikkari’s After Five program Adminize’s research director who visited in August Sami Laiho said that artificial intelligence makes digital scams even more difficult to identify.
– The worst examples of artificial intelligence can be found in the USA, where a panicked child calls his parents and asks them to send money immediately so he can take an Uber home from a crowded city center in the middle of the night. Artificial intelligence is used in that it generates the child’s voice, Laiho stated in the program.
Laiho said in the “After Viiden” broadcast that a child’s voice can be cloned from, for example, a Tiktok video. According to Laiho, even three seconds of speech can be enough to build a believable hoax.
Sources: Petteri Järvinen (X), MTV News