Key Takeaways
- One in four people have been targeted by the scam or know someone who has been, per McAfee’s research.
- With just three seconds of audio, cybercriminals can clone someone’s voice with 85% accuracy.
If your phone lights up with a message from a desperate loved one, you might be the target of a sophisticated scam.
With recently developed AI voice cloning tools at their disposal, cybercriminals can replicate almost anyone’s voice and leave fake voicemail and text messages in an effort to scam people out of money, cybersecurity software company McAfee reported.
One in four people said they’d experienced an AI voice cloning scam or knew someone who had, according to McAfee’s global study, which surveyed 7,000 people.
Additionally, one in 10 people said they received a message from an AI voice clone — and 77% of them said they lost money as a result.
Of the respondents who lost money, 36% said they lost between $500 and $3,000, and 7% said they lost anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000.
In some cases, cybercriminals need just three seconds of audio to clone a person’s voice with 85% accuracy, according to researchers at McAfee Labs.
Such snippets are readily available online, as many people share videos of themselves on social media. Bad actors can also hack into voice recordings on personal devices.
Although anyone can fall for a scam, older people “are an attractive target” because they tend to have greater financial resources and may be more willing to communicate with strangers, per the FBI.
In 2025, more seniors fell victim to phishing/spoofing fraud than any other scam category, totaling over 48,000 complaints, according to a report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
People can protect themselves from AI voice cloning scams by setting a verbal codeword with close friends and family members, questioning sources and monitoring their personal information online, per McAfee.
Key Takeaways
- One in four people have been targeted by the scam or know someone who has been, per McAfee’s research.
- With just three seconds of audio, cybercriminals can clone someone’s voice with 85% accuracy.
If your phone lights up with a message from a desperate loved one, you might be the target of a sophisticated scam.
With recently developed AI voice cloning tools at their disposal, cybercriminals can replicate almost anyone’s voice and leave fake voicemail and text messages in an effort to scam people out of money, cybersecurity software company McAfee reported.
One in four people said they’d experienced an AI voice cloning scam or knew someone who had, according to McAfee’s global study, which surveyed 7,000 people.