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“I worked at MUFG Union Bank from 2005 to 2019. While I was there, I managed online security, which meant I was protecting both our retail and commercial customers from online security threats.
I officially retired in 2019, but I’ve been working for banks and for vendors and doing a lot of writing… (with) a specific focus on consumer scams.
AI exploded in November 2022. It’s emblazoned on my calendar when that happened. In the last year and a half it’s really become clear that it’s going to have a big impact on consumer scams, just because of the capabilities (of) these Large Language Models.
All it takes is a picture of somebody. I could take a picture of you, and I could convert that into a video. I could have any language, it could be French, German, it doesn’t matter. It can be interactive. The person being scammed – let’s say it’s myself, an older person. I’ll watch this video, and it looks just like it’s a real person.
This is probably one of the worst years that I’ve seen, and I’ve been doing this stuff going back to 2005.
“This is probably one of the worst years that I’ve seen, and I’ve been doing this stuff going back to 2005.”
KEn Palla
With AI, you can generate text messages that are psychologically provocative or psychologically response-oriented. Translation, pictures, video, messaging. All that’s just incredibly easy. And it sounds good, and there aren’t the typos like before. You can rapidly create websites, scam websites, bogus investment websites. You can just create them by the hundreds. It’s very easy to do. You just can create them and clone them, and with the powers of Large Language Models, you just write what you want, and poof, you got a website.
Let’s say I wanted to do a phishing attack on your business, which is newspapers. I would research the people. So if you write stories, and if your name’s on the byline, I’ll research it. You’ll be on LinkedIn, and I’ll find out about you. Based on that, I will then craft an email to you that will be credible. And maybe I know that you’re really interested in these types of stories. I’ll say, ‘Here’s a story that you probably didn’t see yet. The link is below.’ And that’s the link to a phishing attack or it downloads malware.
I guarantee I could write something that you would think was really interesting. AI is writing the email, but more importantly, it researched (the reporter) to create a poignant email, something that you’ve talked about on LinkedIn, or on X.
AI can be really good, but it’s also good for evil in the same ways.”
Ken Palla is an anti-scam consultant and researcher. He is retired, and formerly worked for MUFG Union Bank, a West-Coast based bank. He lives in Menlo Park.
This profile is one of nineteen featured in the “Humans in an age of AI” portrait series. See more profiles here.
