Assistant Professor teaches AI risks, scam awareness to Malta seniors

(MALTA, NY — SEPTEMBER 10, 2024) Senior citizens are the most targeted age group for phone and internet scams, which are now more threatening with the rise of artificial intelligence. Andrew Hurd, an assistant professor in the School for Graduate Studies, is working to raise awareness about the risks of scams and how seniors can stay aware of emerging technology and the risks that come with it.

Hurd spent the morning of Sept. 9, 2024 at the Malta Community Center detailing the dangers of phone phishing, where software can capture and replicate voices from as little as saying hello. Hurd said seniors, who are less familiar with computers and cellphones, are more vulnerable to cyberattacks because they are more trusting than other generations. Hurd advised against clicking on links from unknown sources, answering spam calls, and keeping the same password for different online accounts.

“Artificial intelligence was developed in the 1950s, but how it’s been used today is really what people see,” Hurd said. “It’s the processing power of computers that has brought generating AI into new worlds, the ability to create large amounts of data and analyze that data in a shorter monitor.”

Hurd used AI-generated images and allowed the group of seniors to pinpoint different issues and signs that the image is not real, proving social media and pictures online can be misleading. Hurd said the dangers of social media and the internet go beyond false information, including the risk of personal data and information being leaked to other companies or scammers looking for a way into personal accounts.

“Anything that’s put on social media is being datamined,” Hurd said. “If your voice goes into it, your pictures, images, all that information is being datamined so it can be sold to the highest bidder. When you look at it and we think about social engineering, breaking things down that are on the internet, you’re just creating more avenues for people to gather data.”

Hurd said collecting data can be as simple as answering the phone with a greeting.

“The inflection to the word hello allows software to capture up to 16 characters of the alphabet so if they can get hello and goodbye, they can generate your entire voice altogether,” Hurd said.

Hurd said senior citizens are more likely to trust strangers than younger generations because technology was not always a staple part of life, making them higher targets for the possibility of cyberattacks and placing them often in susceptible environments. The most important thing, according to Hurd, is not answering emails, texts, or calls from people you don’t know or clicking on unknown links.