The perfidy of AI love: dipfakes started to be used to cheat on dating sites
Deepfakes have begun to be used to deceive Russians on dating sites. In fact, scammers have updated the already existing scheme of fake dating, now with the help of special AI programs, attackers create non-existent people and 18+ content. For example, a generated character can chat with girls from a dating site and then ask for money. Users can also receive adult content, additional viewing of which leads to phishing sites. How to recognize the attackers - in the material "Izvestia".
How scammers have updated the scheme with dating
In the run-up to Valentine's Day, scammers modernized the scheme called fake date (fake date) for a large extortion of money from victims. With the development of AI technologies, this scheme has reached a new level and got several new spins at once.
If earlier attackers used generative models to create plausible images, video and voice, now they use AI to create a generated character for a video call, which will be like a live person, blinking, moving lips and dialog, said Tatiana Deshkina, head of the VisionLabs product portfolio (MTS structure).
- We already know about 10 such cases with damage of more than a million rubles each. With the help of AI, attackers can analyze information about the victim, including data from social networks, to create the most plausible scenario of deception," the expert explained.
According to her, in 2025 this practice will become even more sophisticated, as with the help of neural networks it is possible to quickly scan hundreds of thousands of profiles and find vulnerable users, such as single people looking for love.
Attackers have also started to resort to specialized AI assistants that quickly create forbidden content in the "18+" category. This is cheaper and faster than using real people, as it allows you to do without intermediaries and outsiders. We can say that these are dipfakes with an emphasis on the explicit component, added GG Tech IT specialist Sergey Pomortsev.
He emphasized that such content allows you to establish the initial interest of the user, and then lead him to a site with phishing activity. In fact, a new stage of attracting attention was simply added to the old scheme.
Cryptocurrency expert Sergey Kuznetsov agrees with his colleague. He notes that today Nigeria acts as a "homeland" of dipfakes, there poor teenagers with access to the darknet actively use malware and steal from people, including Russians. According to him, Africans often buy their children smartphones with their last money in the expectation that the child will be able to pay them back what they spent with interest, even if it is stolen.
- More often than not, they use dipfakes under the guise of dating. They can even pretend to be a Hollywood star who is supposedly looking for a second half and she just needs to pay for a flight to another country, because there is no money now. There can be any pretexts, including dating in social networks, where the level of trust is quite high. Fraudsters are engaged in malicious mailings, stealing cryptoassets, phishing. Dipfakes inside fake dating schemes are only part of their illegal "business"," the expert added.
"Izvestia" in the press service for dating service "Mamba" told that in 2024 globally changed the product, not only redesigned, but also updated the technology of protection and verification. The service's AI sifts out a significant proportion of unreliable users, the company explained.
How to recognize intruders
Traditionally, the activity of fraudsters increases during the holidays. Most often they focus on the news agenda and adjust their schemes to it, said Dmitry Kiryushkin, head of BI.ZONE Brand Protection.
- Since January 1, 2025, the company's specialists have detected 67 domains on the popular scheme of fake dates. Fraudsters pretend to be girls looking for dating in dating apps. During the holidays you should be especially attentive to any offers, - recommends the expert.
To avoid risks, it is important to check URLs for misspellings and extra characters, as well as to monitor the security of the connection. You should not enter confidential information on dubious resources, you should avoid suspicious links and use multi-factor authentication.
- In 2025, scammers also started sending out false deliveries of gifts and flowers from an unknown admirer. The SMS recipient is asked to send a code to confirm the delivery, but in reality it is needed to hack into the victim's account," said Irina Zinovkina, head of analytical research at Positive Technologies.
F.A.C.C.T. expects a multiple increase in fake-date fraud using neural networks, given the pace of development of AI services and their availability. Attackers are gaining even more opportunities to give the victim the illusion of communicating with a real person, according to Evgeny Egorov, lead analyst at Digital Risk Protection.
Overall, in 2024, more than half of social engineering attacks on individuals used phishing resources, said Roman Reznikov, an analyst at Positive Technologies research group. Social engineering attacks put pressure on the victim's emotions: a desire to participate in a lucrative promotion, interest in shocking news, or even fear for a loved one. If a letter, website or call prompts you to do something, it's better to take a short pause, think things over, and check the information through other channels, the expert recommended.
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