An old SEO scam has a new AI-generated face

For years, Engadget has been the target of a common SEO scam, in which someone claims ownership of an image and asks for a link back to a specific website. Many other websites will tell you the same thing, but now scammers are turning to easily accessible artificial intelligence tools to make their fake DMCA takedown notices and threats of legal action look more legitimate.

according to a report 404 mediaLast week, the publisher of the Tedium website received a “notice of copyright infringement” via email from a law firm called Commonwealth Legal. Like similar attempts in the past to deceive recipients, senders say they are being contacted with “images” associated with the customer. In this case, the sender requested a “visible and clickable link” to a website called “tech4gods” beneath the allegedly stolen photos.

Since Tedium actually used photos from royalty-free providers, the publisher investigated the demand, found the law firm’s website and, upon closer inspection, discovered that images of its attorneys were generated by artificial intelligence.as 404 media pointed out that photos of lawyers had vacant eyes, which is common in photos created by artificial intelligence tools. If you do a reverse image search on them, you’ll get results from the URL generated.photos, a website that uses artificial intelligence to create “unique, hassle-free model photos…from scratch.” The publisher also discovered that the law firm’s listed address was supposed to be on the fourth floor of a building, but instead pointed to a single-story building on Google Street View. The owner of tech4gods said he had nothing to do with the scam but admitted that he had purchased backlinks for his website.

This is just one example of how bad actors are using artificial intelligence tools to fool and deceive people, and we must be even more vigilant because instances like this are likely to continue to increase. Reverse image search engines are your friend, but they may not be foolproof, and they may not always be helpful. For example, deepfakes have become a big problem in recent years as bad actors continue to use them to create convincing videos and audio not only to deceive people, but also to spread misinformation online.