In the past year, schools across the country have received an alarming number of false threats and fake reports of active shooters. At UW Seattle, we’re closely monitoring this national trend, as well as emerging scams using artificial intelligence.
Several school districts in Western Washington have gone into lockdown because of bogus threats. Also known as “swatting,” these calls are meant to cause an armed police response and scare students, faculty and staff. UW has not been immune. Early in this past winter quarter UW Seattle received a report of a threat, and with the help of multiple offices, we were quickly able to determine that the threat wasn’t real.
More than 250 colleges, 100 high schools and a number of other K-12 schools have received calls reporting an explosive device or imminent shooting in the past year. In each of these cases, police needed to treat the threat as real until determined otherwise.
Some of the calls reporting threats were computer generated, a strategy scammers are also using. The Federal Trade Commission is warning that scammers are using artificial intelligence to clone voices for calls claiming a family member has an emergency and needs money immediately.
With this new technology a scam call could come in a loved one’s voice. Check to make sure there’s an emergency first before sending money. Resist the pressure to send money immediately by giving over credit card details. Hang up and call the family member or friend just to be sure.
Scammers ask you to pay or send money in ways that make it hard to get your money back. If the caller says to wire money, send cryptocurrency or buy gift cards, and give them the card numbers and PINs, those could be signs of a scam, according to the FTC. Notify your local law enforcement agency if you have been a victim of a potential scam.