Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Question: I’ve received several phishing emails over the past few months that are very personalized and tough to tell them apart from trusted sources.

How are phishing emails progressing?

Vermont Subscriber

Answer: There is no doubt that phishing emails are evolving to become more personalized and convincing to try and trick the recipients. This can be due to the growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently issued a warning that cyberthreat actors are using AI to construct targeted and customized phishing attacks.

“As technology continues to evolve, so do cybercriminals’ tactics. Attackers are leveraging AI to craft highly convincing voice or video messages and emails to enable fraud schemes against individuals and businesses alike,” said Robert Tripp, FBI Special Agent in Charge.

In the past, phishing emails were easy to spot due to their punctuation and grammatical errors. However, AI corrects those common errors and can easily craft professionally worded emails to try to convince recipients that their bank, healthcare provider, or a government agency is trying to contact them. Plus, generative AI tools can produce multiple emails quickly, and in several languages, so the cybercriminals can widely deploy the emails.