AI generated ads – Scammer's newest tool

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world, in more ways than one. It’s getting impossible to differentiate between real and counterfeit.

Fake news, deep fakes, voice clones, impersonation – all are part of the big game for scammers. However, did you realize what lies beneath the mind-boggling success ratio of the scammers? You’d be surprised, they are exactly the same tools that the corporations are using to sell their stuff. That is Ads!

"Cyber criminals are applying the same tools a business might use to manage a marketing campaign to optimize their campaigns, increasing the likelihood the user will take the bait"        

Picture this. Everyone has few of their favorite things that keeps their life interesting. Most common of them are travel and adventure, entertainment, business, art or literature. Now, we already know all browsers track a tremendous amount of your browsing patterns. All this becomes food for running marketing campaigns of various sorts, by organizations who want you to buy their “deals”. Now, within one of these deals, lies the perfect bait – that even the scammer is relying on.

The devil is in the details, so let’s take an example that I stumbled upon, during my research for this article.

Let’s see what you think is most interesting in this browser news feed?

It’s an easy guess, right? Amitabh Bachchan, a tad bit younger but still with his trademark glasses, and white beard, and having a tag line “Incredible income revealed”. Being the most famous film actor in India, he deserves be the perfect visual for someone who is thinking about putting his or her stash money to work.

“Incredible income revealed” tagline is simply brilliant. It’s as indirect as anyone could get. At this stage the Ad is not even trying to steal anything. It’s not even pleading, it’s a subtle way of luring people with hard cash to just find out what the revelation really is. And look at the brilliance – there is no mention of the name “Amitabh Bachchan” on the ad (probably scammers do understand how to get around the Ads policies so that they don’t get flagged?). Moreover, the visual is more than enough for anyone to be interested in what this Ad has to offer.

So here, anyone would think – what’s the harm in checking what’s inside? I will just read the news piece, some juicy gossip eh! It’s human nature.

Voila! This is juicier than you expected. A large private sector bank sues the father figure of Indian cinema. Real looking images – with NEWS channel styled boxes and all. Now, this looks just like what you watch on TV. It’s that real-looking! Here anyone would start reading further.

Now – let’s go to the text.

Well, well, well. If this text isn’t genius, what is? You stumble upon a full-blown TV episode that in this very busy world, could’ve been easily missed by you. The article is full of facts, and figures – including a full-blown conversation with the superstar - giving it the right amount of credibility.

Additionally, if you notice, this page is full of reviews and recommendations by fellow citizens who have made a ton of money using the same app i.e. Trader Alora 7.0 that the living legend of your country is using. Also, another fact is that the superstar is an endorser for many products, so using him in the picture makes perfect sense – to make believe that he is endorsing yet another product i.e. this trading app! Sheer brilliance! No hard selling – just giving plain truths as they are to be told!

If you click further on any of the links – you reach a notorious website that engages in crypto trading.

Lo & behold!

AI generated account creation page, specially built for Hindi speaking Indians! And the registration closes in like 10 minutes! The whole process is like slow burn, luring hundreds of thousands of eager investors.

Recently The government of India initiated a process to ban more than 100 Chinese websites targeting Indians for investment-related scams.

But kindly note the website in this research was based out of UK! And it looks like a legit home owner website.

You might wonder – ahh, I am immune as I don’t watch Indian movies leave alone Hindi films – so the ad campaigns would avoid me like the plague.

Don’t get too comfortable. Next time you might see this ad instead –

With excerpts from the interview with the most respected industrialist of India –

Alternately you may also get this to tickle your spiritual side:

Or surely, if not Indians – you would be interested in world leaders?

 "Bottom line - No one is immune to cybercrime!"

Welcome to the smart world of AI generated ad campaigns. They are everywhere. And they are delivering results, at least for the scammers!

P.S: All the images used in this article are meant for educational & representation purposes only. They are taken from real news feed on browser while conducting my research.

Article by SyberNow team - Pooja Shimpi and Sameer Gemawat

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