American tech companies are powering a global revolution in the cyberscam industry
Scams and fraud have always been worldwide, mostly in part due to the progression of technology. Now that same technology, particularly American technology, is being used to industrialize cyberscam fraud on a global scale and the extent of its reach is now being revealed.
The public at large tends to focus on scams using social media platforms as a vehicle for fraud, but it’s often the infrastructure that supports those platforms that fuels the fraud itself. According to watchdogs, satellite internet, AI and internet infrastructure companies are among the digital supply chains that criminals choose to exploit. These internet infrastructure providers have the technical capacity to protect consumers, however they often lack the legal, regulatory and business incentives to monitor and potentially stop these persistent and pervasive crimes that the Federal Trade Commission has estimated cost Americans nearly $200 billion in 2024. Despite the fraudulent activity, investigations have found no evidence suggesting these companies had been doing anything illegal. One has to wonder, however, if these same companies are even enforcing their own terms of service, most of which prohibits illegal activity.
Southeast Asia appears to be the epicenter of these scams on an industrial scale, and are using American AI to commit these cyberscams. The most popular and prominent software tool is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, along with Google’s Gemini. All other flavors of AI aren’t off the hook either, according to security nonprofit C4ADS, as other AI software has been stitched into these illegal schemes. How do these AI platforms help scammers? By utilizing AI’s legitimate and illegitimate uses, scammers can eliminate language barriers by using AI’s translation capabilities, generating automated replies and they can create characters that look and sound credible, and can even track employee performance. Abusing these tools have allowed fraudsters to rake in tens of millions of dollars in a very short period.
Spokespersons for both OpenAI and Google have insisted that their software has robust programs in place to preemptively prevent scammers from abusing their tools. Although one has to wonder just how effective these measures actually are.
And it’s not only AI software that is being exploited by cyber criminals, internet service providers, primarily U.S. companies, are unwittingly providing the pipeline for scammers.
From US News:
One in five signals from devices at four scam compounds linked to sanctioned entities in Myanmar was carried by a U.S.-registered company, according to an AP analysis of more than 200,000 device connections provided by International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking non-profit. No other non-regional country came close.
Among them were Cogent Communications, Oracle, AT&T and DigitalOcean. Companies outside the U.S. — including UpCloud, in Finland, and GlobalTeleHost, in Canada — also had servers in the U.S. that hosted high-risk traffic from scam centers.
These companies all emphasized they can’t see the content their networks carry or what end users are doing online — privacy by design that constrains their ability to monitor for abuse. All said they respond to valid abuse reports and cooperate with law enforcement.
Oracle said it was “diligently working with law enforcement” on the material shared by AP. UpCloud said AP’s query had prompted an internal review and refinement of its risk assessment processes.
Starlink is the number one internet service provider in Myanmar and scammers have been a big part of its customer base, data shows
Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, is still the number one internet service provider in Myanmar, including to scam centers, according to device data, public records and interviews — despite Congressional scrutiny and a widely publicized crackdown last fall, when the company said it cut off 2,500 kits near scam compounds.
But scammers are still using Starlink, including from a proliferation of new sites that have grown inside Myanmar since then, satellite imagery and device data International Justice Mission shared with AP show. At least 25 new sites have been constructed, and at least 13 of them have used Starlink to get online, device data shows. That data covers only a sample and may not capture all Starlink activity at these locations.
Starlink declined to respond to detailed questions, but has publicly said they cooperate with law enforcement – including a crackdown in May with the Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force and other companies – and are committed to ensuring the service remains “a force for good.”
What can be done to stop cyberscams like these? Tech companies have the ability, with access to a substantial cache of data, to at least minimize such surreptitious illegal activity. However this might require a significant investment on their part. Sadly, if these tech companies do nothing, it costs them nothing. There apparently is no incentive for them to prevent such nefarious activity by criminals using their products, which is an excuse that sounds both cavalier and robotic. As for Washington lawmakers and government officials, they merely resort to “asking” American tech companies to fend off the scammers, but on a voluntary basis. And understanding that those same tech companies have a cavalier attitude about the situation simply means that likely nothing at all will be done.
More Information on global cyberscam
Billion-dollar cyberscam industry spreading globally, UN says
BANGKOK, April 21 (Reuters) – Asian crime syndicates behind the multibillion-dollar cyberscam industry are expanding globally including to South America and Africa, as raids in Southeast Asia fail to contain their activities, the United Nations said in a report on Monday.
Criminal networks that emerged in Southeast Asia in recent years, opening sprawling compounds housing tens of thousands of workers, many trafficked and forced to scam victims around the world, have evolved into a sophisticated global industry, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
China’s cyberscam crackdown pushed syndicates to target Americans, analysts say
Criminal syndicates increasingly turned from targeting Chinese nationals to Americans after Beijing’s 2023 crackdown on online scams in Southeast Asia, analysts said on Wednesday, triggering a global game of “whack-a-mole”.
“China has a huge advantage and a head start in terms of trying to protect its own citizens from scams compared to the US,” said Sue-Lin Wong, who hosts the Scam Inc. podcast, adding that it is “terrible for Americans who are losing a lot of money”.
Rising cyberscam losses expose gaps in EU response
A landmark study on cyberscams in Europe released this week has found that 75% of adults encountered a scam in the past year.
While 71% of respondents said they were confident in recognizing scams, 8% of those exposed went on to interact with scammers. Some 16% of parents said their children had been approached by a scammer.
Age of the ‘scam state’: how an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry has taken root in south-east Asia
For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.
So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.
