Don't let AI phantom hackers drain your bank account

 

Tech support scams have been around for years, but a new variant called the Phantom Hacker scam is rapidly gaining traction. It has cost victims, primarily older Americans, over $500 million since 2023. This scam is particularly deceptive because it unfolds in three carefully orchestrated phases and uses AI-powered social engineering tactics to avoid detection. Attackers leverage caller ID spoofing and AI-generated voices to make their scheme more persuasive, but there are ways to protect yourself.

How the phantom hacker scam works

As highlighted by the FBI, the scam begins with the tech support impostor phase. You might receive a call, email, text or even a pop-up on your computer warning you that your device has been compromised. The message urges you to call a customer support number for assistance.

Once you do, a scammer posing as tech support claims that hackers have targeted your accounts. To "help," they instruct you to download remote access software, allowing them to take control of your computer. Under the guise of scanning for threats, they trick you into revealing your financial accounts, setting up the next phase of the scam.

Next comes the financial institution impostor phase. Another scammer, pretending to be from your bank or investment firm, calls to warn that a foreign hacker has infiltrated your accounts. They advise moving your money to a "safe" government-protected account, often using wire transfers, cryptocurrency or cash deposits. They might also insist on keeping the transaction confidential, claiming it’s necessary for security reasons.

In the final U.S. government impostor phase, a third scammer impersonates a federal official – often from the Federal Reserve – who pressures you to act quickly. If you start doubting the scheme, they may send you an official-looking email or document to convince you that the transfer is legitimate. By the time victims realize they’ve been tricked, their money is gone, often sent overseas beyond the reach of U.S. authorities.

How AI is making things worse

AI is making scams like the Phantom Hacker scam more deceptive and harder to spot. Scammers are using AI-powered chatbots to automate their schemes. Instead of relying on human operators, they can now deploy AI-driven responses that sound natural and convincing.

AI-generated deepfake voices are also being used to impersonate bank officials and government representatives. With just a short audio sample, scammers can clone a voice to make their calls seem even more authentic. This means a victim might hear what sounds like their bank manager or an official from the Federal Reserve.

Email scams are also becoming more sophisticated. AI tools can craft messages that mimic the tone and style of official communications. Scammers can even generate fake but realistic-looking documents with official letterheads to convince victims that the scam is legitimate.

The best way to defend yourself against the Phantom Hacker scam is to stay informed, be cautious and follow these steps:

1) Ignore unsolicited messages: Scammers often send pop-ups, text messages or emails claiming that your computer is infected or that your bank account is at risk. These messages may look official, but they are designed to create panic and pressure you into taking immediate action. Never click on links or attachments from unknown senders, as they may contain malware or lead to phishing websites that steal your personal information.

2) Have strong antivirus software: The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

3) Verify phone numbers before calling: If you receive an unexpected message urging you to call tech support, do not use the number provided in the message. Instead, visit the official website of the company in question and find their customer support contact information. Scammers often create fake websites or use caller ID spoofing to make their phone numbers appear legitimate, so always double-check before making a call.

4) Avoid downloading unknown software: No reputable company will ever ask you to install remote access tools unless you have specifically reached out for tech support. Scammers use these programs to take control of your computer, monitor your activity and access sensitive information. If someone unexpectedly asks you to download software to "fix a problem" or "protect your account," it is likely a scam.

5) Never give control of your device to a stranger: If you allow a scammer to remotely access your computer, they can view your personal files, log your keystrokes and manipulate your accounts without your knowledge. Legitimate customer support representatives will never request remote access unless you have initiated the support request through an official company channel. If someone insists on taking control of your device, hang up immediately.

6) Be skeptical of urgent financial warnings: The U.S. government will never contact you unexpectedly and demand that you move your money to a "safe account." They will also never ask you to wire funds, purchase gift cards or send cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Scammers create a false sense of urgency to trick victims into acting before they can think critically about the situation. If someone claims to be from a bank or government agency and pressures you to move money, stop and verify their identity through official channels.

7) Invest in personal data removal services: Scammers often gather information from data broker websites to make their scams more convincing. Your name, phone number, home address and even financial history may be publicly available without your knowledge.

Consider using a data removal service to regularly scan and request the removal of your personal information from these databases. This reduces the chances of scammers targeting you with highly personalized attacks. You can also manually opt out of major data broker sites, but using a service automates the process and keeps your information protected over time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.

by Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report

 

"Since Inauguration Day, the Office for Civil Rights has only opened about 20 investigations focused on Trump’s priorities, placing more than 10,000 student complaints related to disability access and sexual and racial harassment on hold"

 

In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt.

At the same time, there’s been a dramatic drop in the number of new cases opened by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and the few that attorneys have been directed to investigate reflect some of Trump’s priorities: getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students.

The OCR has opened about 20 new investigations since Trump’s inauguration, sources inside the department told ProPublica, a low number compared with similar periods in previous years. During the first three weeks of the Biden administration, for instance, the office opened about 110 new investigations into discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or disability, the office’s historic priorities. More than 250 new cases were opened in the same time period last year.

Historically, the bulk of investigations in the office have been launched after students or their families file complaints. Since Trump took office, the focus has shifted to “directed investigations,” meaning that the Trump administration has ordered those inquiries.

“We have not been able to open any (investigations) that come from the public,” said one longtime OCR attorney who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job.

Several employees told ProPublica that they have been told not to communicate with the students, families and schools involved in cases launched in previous administrations and to cancel scheduled meetings and mediations. “We’ve been essentially muzzled,” the attorney said.

What We’re Watching

During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely…

-Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen for ProPublica

https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-civil-rights-office-investigations?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary

 

Say What?

 

 “A Mississippi senator shocked residents last week as he proposed a satirical new bill that would bizarrely see men fined for masturbating. It has left everyone wondering how it could possibly be enforced.  

“It was on January 20, that Mississippi state Senator Bradford Blackmon made the unusual move to propose that it should be made unlawful within the state for men to masturbate in any other sexual relations that involved 'discharging genetic material' without the express intention of 'fertilizing a human egg'.

“Meanwhile, the bill, which has been called the 'Contraception Begins at Erection Act' would still need to make its way past Republican Governor, Tate Reeves, for it to become set in law. It has left many wondering how such rules could ever be enforced by those in power.”

 

Illinois Judge Tosses Out Firearm Identification Law, Says Second Amendment Shields Home Gun Possession

 

An Illinois circuit court has recently made a significant ruling, declaring the state's Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) law unconstitutional in certain circumstances. White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb stated, "the Defendant’s activity of possessing a firearm within the confines of her home is an act protected by the Second Amendment."

This groundbreaking decision occurred in the context of the Illinois v. Vivian Brown case, involving a woman who was charged with having a firearm in her home without a FOID card, despite not using it nor having any criminal record. The news of this ruling has been reported by WGN-TV and WFIE.

The incident leading to this legal dispute began when Brown's husband filed a complaint against her, alleging that she had a .22 caliber rifle at her residence and had fired it. However, police investigations found that the rifle had not been fired. Despite this, charges were still brought against Brown for possession of a firearm without the necessary identification.

During the case proceedings, Judge Webb identified that to have to pay a fee associated with exercising the core fundamental Constitutional right of armed self-defense within the confines of one's home violates the Second Amendment, according to a statement obtained by WGN-TV.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes. While this does not entail a sweeping invalidation of the FOID Act, it does suggest that future legal challenges could further alter the landscape of firearm regulation in Illinois.

Judge Webb's ruling reflects an ongoing national dialogue about the tension between gun rights and gun control, particularly when it comes to what is deemed reasonable regulation. According to information provided by WFIE, Webb argued that Brown "should not have been charged" and was afforded protection under the second amendment.

A deeper analysis of the evidence led the Court to strike down the part of the Illinois law that would otherwise have criminalized Brown's possession of the rifle within her home. Local and national stakeholders are closely monitoring the implications of this ruling, aware that it may set a precedent for future challenges to firearm ownership laws.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes.

 by Jo Marquez, Hoodline

 

"If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is"

 

I want to talk today about the media’s coverage of the Trump-Vance-Musk coup. I’m not referring to coverage by the bonkers right-wing media of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and its imitators.

I’m referring to the U.S. mainstream media — The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Public Radio — and the mainstream media abroad, such as the BBC and The Guardian.

By not calling it a coup, the mainstream media is failing to communicate the gravity of what is occurring.  

Yesterday’s opinion by The New York Times’ editorial board offers a pathetic example. It concedes that Trump and his top associates “are stress-testing the Constitution, and the nation, to a degree not seen since the Civil War” but then asks: “Are we in a constitutional crisis yet?” and answers that what Trump is doing “should be taken as a flashing warning sign.”

Warning sign?

Elon Musk’s meddling into the machinery of government is a part of the coup. Musk and his muskrats have no legal right to break into the federal payments system or any of the other sensitive data systems they’re invading, for which they continue to gather computer code.

This data is the lifeblood of our government. It is used to pay Social Security and Medicare. It measures inflation and jobs. Americans have entrusted our private information to professional civil servants who are bound by law to use it only for the purposes to which it is intended. In the wrong hands, without legal authority, it could be used to control or mislead Americans.

By failing to use the term “coup,” the media have also underplayed the Trump-Vance-Musk regime’s freeze on practically all federal funding — suggesting this is a normal part of the pull-and-tug of politics. It is not. Congress has the sole authority to appropriate money. The freeze is illegal and unconstitutional.

By not calling it a coup, the media have also permitted Americans to view the regime’s refusal to follow the orders of the federal courts as a political response, albeit an extreme one, to judicial rulings that are at odds with what a president wants.

There is nothing about the regime’s refusal to be bound by the courts that places it within the boundaries of acceptable politics. Our system of government gives the federal judiciary final say about whether actions of the executive are legal and constitutional. Refusal to be bound by federal court rulings shows how rogue this regime truly is.

Earlier this week, a federal judge excoriated the regime for failing to comply with “the plain text” of an edict the judge issued last month to release billions of dollars in federal grants. Vice President JD Vance, presumably in response, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance graduated from the same law school I did. He knows he’s speaking out of his derriere.

In sum, the regime’s disregard for laws and constitutional provisions surrounding access to private data, impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress, and refusal to be bound by judicial orders amount to a takeover of our democracy by a handful of men who have no legal authority to do so.

If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is.

The mainstream media must call this what it is. In doing so, they would not be “taking sides” in a political dispute. They would be accurately describing the dire emergency America now faces.

Unless Americans see it and understand the whole of it for what it is rather than piecemeal stories that “flood the zone,” Americans cannot possibly respond to the whole of it. The regime is undertaking so many outrageous initiatives that the big picture cannot be seen without it being described clearly and simply.

Unless Americans understand that this is indeed a coup that’s wildly illegal and fundamentally unconstitutional — not just because that happens to be the opinion of constitutional scholars or professors of law, or the views of Trump’s political opponents, but because it is objectively and in reality a coup — Americans cannot rise up as the clear majority we are, and demand that democracy be restored.

-Robert Reich

Ukrainian fears grow as Trump threatens and humiliates Europe

 

This week, as the war in Ukraine took a dramatic turn, we welcomed Sasha Dovzhyk to the Guardian offices. Sasha is director of Index, a new institution in Lviv devoted to the documentation of the war. Sasha spoke movingly about Ukrainians’ hopes and fears after three years of war – including the situation for those living under the terror of occupation, with daily threats to life and safety from the Russian authorities.

She was in London for the launch of a book she helped bring together after its author, the brilliant Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina, was killed in a Russian missile attack before she was able to complete the manuscript. Margaret Atwood introduced our extract from this important book, and Charlotte Higgins’s review is in today’s magazine.

Also this week, Shaun Walker had an exclusive interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. In it, the Ukrainian president made it clear that Europe would not have the means to guarantee his nation’s security if the US were to withdraw defence support.

Not long after we published Zelenskyy’s words, new US defence secretary Pete Hegseth was in Brussels telling his European counterparts they would have to take the lead in defending Ukraine and that the US would no longer prioritise Europe’s safety. That was just the entree for an even bigger shift: Donald Trump announcing he’d agreed to begin negotiations with Vladimir Putin to broker a ceasefire.

It was another seismic geopolitical moment in the nascent days of the second Trump era. And it was “precisely what Putin had been waiting for”, according to the experts and insiders our Russian affairs correspondent Pjotr Sauer spoke to.

Global affairs correspondent Andrew Roth wrote that Trump “does not care who controls the blood-soaked soils of east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals that lie beneath” while Patrick Wintour gauged the scale of Europe’s diplomatic humiliation as the Munich security conference began.

Shaun Walker and Artem Mazhulin spoke to those on the ground in Kyiv, where reaction ranged from feelings of betrayal to grim relief the war may at least be ending.

Columnist and Europe expert Timothy Garton Ash was left flabbergasted by the dire consequences of Trump’s decision, writing that his “appeasement of Vladimir Putin makes Neville Chamberlain look like a principled, courageous realist”.

We’re entering a critical new stage for Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East as the world reorientates to Trump’s second presidency. Our live blogs remain essential in keeping up with the latest developments, while our correspondents and experts are committed to explaining how these overlapping stories are shaping the world for our readers and revealing their human impact on the ground.

-Owen Gibson, The Guardian

"All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them"

 

Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. 

The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. 

We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.

-Andrew Coyne, Toronto Globe