A friend’s parents were recently targeted by AI scammers that impersonated family members. This shocked me because her parents are pretty poor, and I imagine it’s not free to make targeted scams like this. So, why were they targeted?

My guess is that my friend is listed on a company website as an executive, and scammers are using company pages to find targets worth spending money on. Scams like these aren’t free, but they’re cheap enough to cast wide nets. The nets are only going to get wider as AI becomes cheaper and more available.

Security by obscurity, as effective as it was, is coming to an end. AI enables scammers to spear phish indiscriminately.