Micro Masters

Email users prepare for the newest wave of AI-powered scam and phishing techniques.

After all these years of teaching safe measures, the message is the same in order to protect yourselves. AI is only making it more difficult, but the basics is not to open email you aren't expecting and especially attachments.

We turn off email preview so the computer doesn't even ask to download images and it doesn't notify the sender that you've opened up your email. Opening your email and then deleting it still sends a message back and notifies the scammer the email address they sent their scam to is an active address. Knowing this they'll begin using other techniques to entrap you in their web.

Even if you receive an email from somebody you trust, if they didn't tell you they were sending it, then treat it as malicious. Get into a habit with your friends to let you know they're sending you something, don't make assumptions.

Just like receiving an unexpected phone call from your financial institution, hang up without engaging in conversation and call them on a known phone number, treat email the very way. If you receive an email from something like a financial or medical institution ** DO NOT ** click on a link and attempt to login or otherwise engage, even calling the provided phone number within the email.

Bottom line, use common sense. You can't see the person or otherwise validate the conversation via phone or email, so don't volunteer ANY information about yourself. I know it's an extreme, but in the near future it won't be... Don't engage in conversation, AI will sample your voice and replicate it to others as if it were you.

Your life is going to quickly get more complicated while using the Internet, at least for awhile. BUT with the promise your online accounts password authentication will be more secure.

Microsoft Authenticator Is Ending Password Autofill Soon—How to Set Up a Passkey Before Aug. 1 Note that not all websites and applications have adopted passkeys yet, so many places still rely on passwords.