InfoSecBulletin Cybersecurity for mankind
Australian banks are now using bots to combat scammers. These bots mimic potential victims to gather real-time information and drain scammers’ resources. The collected data is sent to fraud detection systems used by banks, telecom companies, and government agencies.
On June 27, Commonwealth Bank of Australia launched 10,000 AI bots to combat scams by engaging with scammers and collecting intelligence.
US banks faced unauthorized access by AI agents in customer accounts: Axios reports
Atlassian patched 176 flaw in Jira and Confluence: Fortinet Urges to Patch Flaws Affecting FortiOS, FortiManager
Hacker claim to access Rajasthan Police data: 70,000 records allegedly exposed
Update now! PHP2Shell: Critical PHP vulnerabilities patched
Trump says data centres should pay dividends to local community
Hackers Actively Exploiting Palo Alto VPN Flaw Via CVE-2026-0257
DeepSeek AI banned by U.S. Government; federal agencies must remove all related tools
CISA, NSA and NIST Publish New 10 AI Agent Control Guidelines
Claude AI Cracks 25-Year NSA Cryptography Number Mystery in Just 30 Minutes
Bypassing firewalls, AI Agents Accessed Indian ‘ Data Without Permission: CERT-In
Multilingual AI chatbots use voice clones to keep scammers on long calls. The bots gather intelligence from calls and provide real-time insights to the bank’s scam-control systems.
“Scammers are increasingly using AI to target Australians – we’re turning the tables by using AI to fight back. Every minute a scammer is engaging with a bot is a minute they’re not targeting an Australian,” the bank’s group fraud general manager James Roberts said.
The initiative, created with Apate.ai, uses a honeypot strategy to lure attackers into a virtual trap.
Professor Dali Kaafar, founder and chief executive of Apate.ai, said: “In the fight against scams, timing is everything. Our intelligence gives organisations like Commonwealth Bank the edge, not just to detect scams, but to anticipate and block it before it reaches customers.”
phone scams caused the most financial losses in 2024, with 2,179 victims losing A$107.2 million (S$89.3 million).
Scammers often used text messages as their second most common way to contact victims, with investment scams causing the largest losses through this method. The bots not only engage users but also detect new scam trends, enhance the bank’s scam detection, and help shut down scam networks across the industry.
In Singapore, the AI model Meralion filters phone calls to block potential scams before they reach victims.
If a call is marked suspicious, Meralion identifies itself as an AI assistant and asks the caller for the reason. It then decides to connect or block the call based on the answer.
Meralion can block robocalls, which are automated calls often used by scammers to target many people at once.
