McAfee Debuts AI-Powered Scam Detector Tool

McAfee debuted a tool to combat the rising tide of text, email and video scams.

The McAfee Scam Detector, announced Monday (Jan. 6) at the CES show in Las Vegas, uses artificial intelligence to analyze and flag risky messages in real time, according to a Monday press release.

“That ‘Hi, how are you?’ text from a stranger? It’s one of the top text scams of 2024,” the release said. “An urgent email about a failed delivery? Probably fake. And no, Elon Musk doesn’t have a unique investment opportunity for you. McAfee makes it easy to tell real from fake in seconds and gives you the winning combination of tips and technology to keep scams out of your life for good.”

Scam Detector will be included at no extra charge for McAfee customers starting this spring, according to the release. Among its features are email and text scam detectors, which monitor customer inboxes for suspicious messages, flag them before they’re opened and inform users why the message is dangerous.

The company’s deepfake detector, meanwhile, can spot AI-crafted videos, letting users know if something they’re watching isn’t what it claims to be, the release said.

“Scammers are getting smarter every day, using technology like artificial intelligence to make their tricks more convincing and harder to spot,” McAfee Chief Technology Officer Steve Grobman said in the release. “They play on people’s emotions — like fear, urgency or trust — to get what they want.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The State of Fraud and Financial Crime in the US: What FIs Need to Know,” found that scammers usually get what they want. Last year, scams became the leading form of fraud, ahead of digital payment fraud. The share of scam-related fraud surged by 56%, and financial losses from scams jumped 121%. Scams now make up nearly a quarter of all fraudulent transactions, with relationship/trust and product/service scams leading to the most losses.

These scams trick individuals into authorizing fraudulent transactions, in many cases using deceptive tactics. In addition, fraud involving compromised credentials, where individuals are duped into revealing account details for their financial institutions (FIs), is also on the rise.

“The increase in scams over digital payment fraud illustrates the changing strategies of fraudsters, who now exploit vulnerabilities in human behavior instead of targeting technical flaws in digital payment systems,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “As a result, FIs face greater challenges in managing fraud, with scams growing in frequency and sophistication.”