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Last updated on: September 20, 2023
ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool developed by OpenAI and released to the public in November 2022. This sophisticated and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) quickly gained popularity online because of its ability to generate human-like conversations, draft complex text, and much more. While the potential uses of ChatGPT have been exciting for many people, the platform has also been susceptible to exploitation by bad actors.
In recent months, many scammers have exploited the power, speed, and precision of ChatGPT to produce content that infringes intellectual property (IP) rights, attacks brands, and takes advantage of online consumers.
In this blog, we’ll be exploring how ChatGPT is used by bad actors to bolster their scam operations by touching on a number of topics, including:
ChatGPT is an advanced AI platform renowned for its capabilities. Dishonest individuals seeking to deceive businesses and customers through phishing attacks and impersonations can amplify their deceptive strategies with the aid of AI platforms such as ChatGPT. Their primary objective is to unlawfully acquire sensitive information, manipulate individuals into surrendering funds, and undermine the credibility of reputable brands.
Here are a few of the key ways scammers exploit ChatGPT in today’s market:
Scammers utilize ChatGPT’s ability to produce large swathes of convincing text at great speeds. For example, this functionality allows scammers to produce a large number of deceptive phishing emails and phishing strategies within a very brief period of time. With ChatGPT, bad actors can run many more scams than before because they can almost automate the whole process.
Scammers also use ChatGPT for impersonation, social engineering scams, and fraudulent customer support. The languaging processing capabilities of ChatGPT enable scammers to quickly imitate the voice and tone of a brand or individual.
This presents real difficulties for many legitimate businesses that will find it hard to manually defend against scammers, many of whom feel empowered by platforms like ChatGPT that can be exploited to create and run scams.
Scammers are also exploiting ChatGPT to write and generate code that can be used with malicious intent. This feature can be used to speed up the production of fake websites and bolster phishing and impersonation efforts.
The AI-generated coding allows these bad actors to develop fake websites that are far more interactive and functional than what they could create manually. The result is a functional fake website that can appear indistinguishable from real brand sites.
These scam sites are made quickly by bad actors with little to no investment in terms of time or effort, so as soon as one fake website is shut down they can quickly create a new one using ChatGPT.
The negative consequences of scammers using ChatGPT cannot be understated. Essentially, scammers have been handed a new and exciting tool with which they can run, expand and evolve their scam operations and the potential impact this can have on businesses can potentially be devastating.
ChatGPT impersonation scams have the potential to damage the overall reputation of your brand and the trust customers place in your business. If a scammer uses ChatGPT to produce emails and communications to impersonate your brand as part of a fraud scheme, then your customers will be reluctant to engage with your business in the future. Once your reputation and trust are eroded the growth of your brand suffers.
ChatGPT scammers are placing a new pressure on cybersecurity departments and presenting new security problems for your business. The exploitation of ChatGPT by scammers adds a new layer to the existing cybersecurity challenges and necessitates adaptation.
Many businesses will need to implement strong security measures to address this problem. For example, your business will need to have continuous monitoring in place to detect and prevent fraudulent activities. Then you will need to follow this up with a robust system of enforcement against ChatGPT scammers.
ChatGPT scams that target your business may also result in financial losses and legal trouble. Scammers are using ChatGPT to create websites that are more functional and more capable of stealing sensitive financial information from your business and your customers.
Today, with the assistance provided by ChatGPT coding, scammers can create sites that are both highly functional and almost identical to complex brand web pages that businesses may have spent years developing. ChatGPT also speeds up the website creation process, enabling bad actors to quickly create new fake websites whenever one is taken down. This relentless “whackamole effect” puts enormous pressure on businesses and makes it difficult to defend against financial losses.
Not only will this lead to direct financial losses this will also have the knock-on effect of reducing your customer base and minimizing your revenue. If the situation is serious or protracted then you may have to obtain legal assistance to defend against scammers. Depending on the type of legal steps that follow you may have to get involved in a lengthy, complex, and expensive process.
Scammers using ChatGPT are also capable of disrupting your daily business operations. No business wants to spend time and resources tackling scammers, but it has to be done. For example, customer support departments are increasingly having to divert time and resources to tracking fake orders or explaining scams to customers. This will disrupt their standard operations and take them away from more vital tasks.
When scammers, powered by ChatGPT, are launching attacks on a regular basis it can be a constant nuisance that can cause major disruption to the overall operations of a brand. For example, your security and compliance department will have to take time and resources away from defending traditional threats to deal with the potential impact of ChatGPT scams.
To prevent your business from becoming a target of ChatGPT scammers and business impersonators you have to be proactive. It is important to educate your employees, identify red flags and invest in impersonation protection solutions.
A simple step you can take right now is to educate your employees and customer service representatives about the risks associated with ChatGPT scams. If you have an informed workforce your business will be less vulnerable and will have fewer soft spots for scammers to exploit. This will hopefully deter scammers from targeting your business and put a stop to some of the impersonators attacking your brand.
The stronger your presence online is the harder it will be for people to fall victim to impersonators. You can boost your online presence by having verified accounts across social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. This will also make it easier for you to submit reliable and actionable reports to these websites when you do witness impersonations.Â
Learn to spot the tell-tale signs of business impersonation. Be aware that scammers will often attempt to lazily replicate your intellectual property across social media, marketplaces, and third-party websites. Keep a close eye on any interactions with your business or your customers that seem suspicious.
Are there any new and abnormal communications? Is there specific language in these interactions that keeps coming up? Regularly monitor all online channels and make sure that you respond to bad reviews promptly.
Start using a brand protection service that allows you to monitor and detect instances of business impersonation. The best solutions will also empower you to gather evidence and take down impersonators as soon as possible. This is a proactive way of mitigating business impersonation and it will allow you to feel secure in the integrity of your online presence.
Red Points’ Impersonation Removal Software is designed to protect your business from fake websites and phishing scams. Powered by automated technology and machine learning, our solution is well-suited to take down ChatGPT scammers.
Red Points combats scammers with a simple three-step process:
Red Points monitors the web 24/7 to ensure that we can detect and track scammers when they appear. Our monitoring process is automated and bot-powered to ensure that our efforts are thorough and precise. Machine learning helps to make each search more targeted than the last, ensuring that scammers have no place to hide.
As we obtain a view of the digital landscape and identify potential brand impersonators or infringers, we add these to a log of detections that can be accessed on the revenue recovery platform. Then you will validate a detection to confirm it is a legitimate case of infringement. You can also make use of smart rules that enable you to automate the validation process based on parameters that you define.
Then you can start to remove what puts your customers at risk. Enforcement begins immediately after detection is validated. We act on your behalf to execute takedown requests. While we handle the whole takedown process you still remain responsible for the due diligence of ensuring each and every case is in fact a genuine infringement.
After enforcement, you can then understand and review the whole process with our in-depth reporting system. Once a takedown is successfully completed we will send you a detailed report that summarizes the incident. This will help you prepare for the future and ensure that your brand is no longer targeted by business impersonators.
If ChatGPT continues to be exploited in the way it is today many businesses will be placed in a difficult position. The efficiency of the phishing attacks and impersonation scams made possible by AI-platforms like ChatGPT will make it difficult for brands to defend themselves.
Ultimately, along with educating your workforce and acting swiftly, the best way to minimize the impact of ChatGPT exploitation on your brand is to invest in a digital solution like Red Points’ Impersonation Removal Software. To learn more about how Red Points can help your business defend against ChatGPT scammers, request a demo here today.
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