60 Minutes reporter Amelia Adams uses AI technology to replicate her voice and ‘scam’ her colleague

Scammers are starting to implement artificially intelligent technology to trick Australians into giving away their personal information and hard-earned money.

A new worry con known as spoofing involves callous thieves masking their phone number to appear as a trusted contact such as a bank, government body or loved one.

While it’s been around for a while, it has become more nuanced with the evolution of AI technology that can imitate the exact voices of people you know.

To demonstrate how easy it is to fool someone, 60 Minutes reporter Amelia Adams evoked cyber security firm CyberCx to carry out a scam on one of the show’s crew.

The company’s director, Jason Edelstein, used AI to perfectly mimic her voice in a phone call and ask her colleague Dan for her passport number.

‘We’re going to call Dan … and we’re going to ask him to disclose your passport number that you need while you’re out on the road,’ Mr Edelstein said.

‘We’ve got some fabricated voice samples that we’re going to produce using artificial intelligence that will sound very, very similar to your voice that combined with the call spoofing will give real credibility to the scam.’

Dan was immediately tricked into handing over her private details thinking it was her.

One of the many Australians who have been recently conned by spoofing scams, Melbourne businessman Tim Watkins, revealed he lost over $220,000.

The scammers that had conned Mr Watkins were able to imitate the number of his bank, NAB, telling him that his bank account had been used to purchase $800 worth of amazon gift cards. 

Mr Watkins had no reason to believe the text was suspicious and thought that someone had actually used his account to purchase the gift cards.

A new worry con spoofing and involves callous thieves masking their phone number to appear as a trusted contact such as a bank, government body or loved one. While already a successful tactic, it has become more nuanced with the evolution of artificially intelligent technology (pictured) that can imitate the exact voices of people you know

Tim Watkins (pictured), was conned of $220,000 in just 10 minutes after scammers used the same number as his bank, NAB, to gain his trust

By responding to the attached phone number and providing them with a total of 10 codes sent through the same number he unknowingly allowed ten transactions.

‘On returning home I logged into NAB online to find out that a significant six figure sum had been taken, wiping out my business and personal bank accounts,’ Mr Watkins told Daily Mail Australia shortly after he was scammed.

‘(I was) surprised that they (NAB) did not seem to have any protocol in place to deal with the cyber scam nor to help me in what was a very traumatic time.’ 

Chris Sheehan, NAB Executive for Group Investigations and Fraud, said: ‘Unfortunately, once the funds have left an account and are sent to another bank, it is extremely hard for us to retrieve them. These criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated and operate with speed to move stolen funds.’