An investigation by The Standard has found that British celebrities are being increasingly targeted by cybercriminals in fake cryptocurrency scam ads that are generated using artificial intelligence (AI).
As part of the latest con, grifters are using readily available AI tools to create fake pictures of Arsenal legend Ian Wright, Italian celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo, and adventurer Bear Grylls in order to peddle get-rich-quick schemes on Facebook and Twitter.
The ads have been viewed more than a million times on Twitter alone, according to their public view counts.
Cybercriminals pay for promoted advertising posts on social media networks that look like they come from accredited influencers or organisations.
For example, the image in the post below shows the celebrity in question being arrested by the police and, if you click on the link, it sends you to a fake article in a webpage template that appears to be The Guardian.
In the case of Bear Grylls, the ludicrous headline claims that the Bank of England has sued him, while other scams claimed that Gino D’Acampo had died, according to The Skeptic.
The Guardian is one of a number of trusted media companies whose brand is used to fake these sorts of images
In reality, The Standard found that many of these scam webpages have been sneakily inserted into real websites. In one example, we found a scam article hosted on a government agency website in Brazil.
Mr Wright took to TikTok earlier this month to call out the scams after being alerted of their existence: “Listen, I’m getting so many calls — people think I’ve been arrested. They’re superimposing me with handcuffs, look at me. This is a scam, people are scamming you. I ain’t been arrested, I ain’t doing nothing to get arrested.”
The Standard has approached Facebook and Twitter for comment.
A Guardian News and Media spokesman said: “The Guardian is one of a number of trusted media companies whose brand is used to fake these sorts of images, which contain completely fabricated headlines and imagery.
“We are aware of these instances and have submitted appropriate requests for takedown, and welcome the fact that, following the passage of the online safety bill, online platforms will have greater legal responsibility to prevent these sorts of scam ads from ever being published.”
Targeted scam ads for UK audiences
Although there is no precise data on how many scam ads are currently circulating or how many people are being affected, experts are warning that they, too, are seeing a worrying rise in the amount of AI-generated scams on social media.
“[Scams that use generative AI] are very much on the increase,” Katherine Hart, lead officer at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, told The Standard.
“What we’re finding is that criminals will basically use these generated images of a well-known celebrity to either endorse a product or to spread fake news.”
She added that the Chartered Trading Standards Institute is hoping to work with social media platforms to be able to take them down as quickly as possible, “but as soon as we take them down, unfortunately, another one appears”.
Over the past two years, the most common scam ads used Elon Musk to promote cryptocurrencies, particularly during lockdowns in 2021, when he announced that Tesla had bought $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in Bitcoin and would be accepting it as payment.
According to cybersecurity firm Avast, victims lost an average of $250 (£198) to the scam. In just August 2022 alone, Avast blocked the ad from being shown to more than 10,000 users in 11 countries across several continents.
We found that the top three brands impersonated by malicious threat actors over the last 90 days, to steal personal and confidential data, were Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon
In March, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked social media networks for more information about how they detect bad ads. It says in 2022, US citizens lost more than $1.2bn (£951 m) to fraud that started on social media.
According to Menlo Security, at least we’re starting to get suspicious — one in three UK consumers now believe that more than half of all ads on websites or social media sites are generated by AI. However, it says people still don’t mind clicking on them.
Its survey of 1,000 UK consumers found that around half (48 per cent) of respondents are unaware they can be infected via a social media ad and 40 per cent don’t know they can be infected by clicking on pop-ups and banners.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram are seen as being more trustworthy, with one in five people trusting these sites not to promote ads that link to dodgy websites that might install malware on your computer.
“We found that the top three brands impersonated by malicious threat actors over the last 90 days, to steal personal and confidential data, were Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. Some people may be shocked to learn that even the most credible websites are not immune to malvertising,” Tom McVey, an AI security spokesperson at Menlo Security told The Standard.
“We advise people to report the [scams] to the social media platforms, but also do a little homework on this product that they’re interested in, and do a few checks themselves,” stressed Ms Hart.
“Don’t just rely on an image of a celebrity endorsing a product. Do a little bit of homework yourself.”
