The Grift is the Payload: How Scammers Target Minds, Not Machines

Abstract:

Modern scams rarely start with a zero-day exploit. They start with a story that preys on trust, emotion, and vulnerability. This talk delives into how fraudsters attack human minds through psychological hooks, now supercharged by AI voice cloning, deepfakes, and text blasts–especially those targeting young people. It will dissect racial and financial disparities in money lost in response to a scam attempt. And it’ll expose platform failures–like Meta’s failure to detect and remove scam networks. Finally, we’ll map these to cognitive biases that keep victims hypnotized, and discuss how to break the spell.