2,500,000,000 Gmail users targeted by viral AI hack that tricks users into accepting 'security warning': report

A sophisticated new artificial intelligence (AI)-based scam is targeting billions of users of the world's largest email service.

Microsoft security expert Sam Mitrovic writes in a new blog post about a “super-realistic AI scam call” that mimics American-sounding voices to trick Gmail users into giving up their login credentials.

The scam works by sending users a US-based notification of a Gmail account recovery attempt, before – as Mitrovic's particular experience shows – the victim is called from an Australian phone number labeled “Google Sydney.”

After the second attempt, Mitrovic decided to take up the scam and entertain it.

An American voice that sounded “very polite and professional” could be heard on the other end of the call, while background conversations from the call center could be heard in the background and she was calling from an official Google phone number in Australia.

Mitrovic even heard the typing as he asked the person to email him. However, Mitrovic noticed that the voice sounded a little too “perfect”.

“The caller said hello, then I ignored it about 10 seconds later and then said hello again. At that point, I released it as an AI voice because the pronunciation and spacing were too perfect.”

Mitrovic also noted that the email he received came from “GoogleMail at InternalCaseTracking.com” – a non-Google domain.

The security expert says that if he had stayed in the conversation long enough, he believes the next step would likely have been to approve the account recovery notification before gaining full control of his email.

The scam centers around a combination of AI deepfakes and phishing techniques. Anna Collard, a cybersecurity expert from KnowB4, told Forbes:

“The main reason social engineering is so effective is because it is constantly evolving. The rise of deepfakes, artificially created, convincingly real images and videos, has further increased the potential for misinformation and manipulation.”

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