This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: How To Protect Yourself From Cyber Theft

Today I’m talking about the latest cybertheft nightmare: voice cloning

With the help of AI-software, cybercriminals can now clone voices so accurately that family members and even voice recognition software cannot tell that it is not the actual person who is speaking. 

The problem is for many of us, the horse has left the barn. If you have video posted online like on Facebook of you talking, or worse, if you’re like me and you have literally hundreds of hours of your voice posed online because of this podcast, then you’re at risk for your own voice to be cloned and used by scammers. 

But it doesn’t have to even be your own voice. A mom in AZ was nearly tricked into wiring $50,000 to scammers who claimed to have kidnapped her 15 yo daughter. They used AI to clone the daughters voice. ““Mom! I messed up!” screamed a girl’s voice.”

The mom told CNN recently: “The voice sounded just like Brie’s, the inflection, everything,” 

The lesson here to be guarded about any information, videos, or even names of family you share online, and to be careful about answering the phone when you don’t recognize the number.

Scammers found the daughter's voice and mom’s phone number in order to stage a fake kidnapping for ransom. But it’s not just social media. Simply answering the phone now can open you up to a potential voice cloning scam.

The Federal Trade Commission cautions: “If you answer a phone call from an unknown number, let the caller speak first. Whoever is on the other end of the line could be recording snippets of your voice — and later using it to impersonate you in a very convincing manner.”

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.    

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