Bitdefender unveiled Bitdefender Scamio, a complimentary scam detection service designed to help users verify fraudulent online schemes delivered by email, embedded links, text, and instant messaging through collaboration with a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Online fraud continues to increase each year. According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report, consumer losses to fraud in 2022 totaled $8.8 billion, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Scams delivered via text messaging alone accounted for $330 million in losses, more than doubling. The recent adoption of large language model (LLM) AI by cybercriminals to assist in creating malicious content that is extremely difficult to spot is expected to exacerbate the challenge of combating online fraud.

Bitdefender Scamio is a personal scam detection chatbot offering a strong second opinion on potential fraud attempts by analyzing emails, text messages, images, individual links, and even QR codes. Users simply drop questionable content into Scamio and describe in a conversational manner the scenario of how it was received. Scamio provides a verdict in seconds along with recommendations on further action (‘delete' and/or ‘block contact' for example) and preventative measures to protect against that type of scam against future attempts.

In addition to leading-edge AI, Scamio is powered by Bitdefender threat protection, prevention and detection technologies to maximize scan detection rates layered with innovative context decoding to provide scam verdicts based on the understanding of particular circumstances. This is highly effective for complex types of fraud like social engineering that may bypass regular forms of detection.

Scamio is simple to use, supports any device or operating system (OS), and is accessed via web browser or through Facebook Messenger after a quick Bitdefender account set-up. It incorporates advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand and interpret user conversations (even language nuances and subtleties typically used in scams) accurately. Scamio is completely free and requires no downloading or previous access to a Bitdefender product.   

"The rapid rise of AI adoption by cybercriminals to dupe people out of money, steal personal information, and infiltrate their digital lives has become a true game changer," said Ciprian Istrate, senior vice president of operations, Consumer Solutions Group at Bitdefender. "Online scams that were once easy to spot, have become difficult to detect with the naked eye. Scamio evens the playing field by giving reliable probability of malicious activity based on message content and context. It's like having a personal assistant you can always talk to and rely on to help protect your digital life."

Availability

Bitdefender Scamio is now available and is free for anyone to use. For more information or to try Scamio visit https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/scamio.html.