REAL LIFE NEWS: BEWARE THE ROGUE CHATBOTS
by Hazed
Chatbots started out as very simplistic bits of software that made general statements in order to try and sound like a human. They got more sophisticated, and more convincing, and were adopted by customer service departments to provide the first line response to idiot users with stupid questions.
(In Fed2, I never bother to log into the game any more but instead have a chatbot pretending to be me... it doesn’t need to be very clever in order to say “Hello darlings” and then answer “I haven’t a clue” to any question asked of it!)
But now chatbots have been coopted by criminals and are being used to trick people into giving up their bank details, download malware, and all the other things cyber-villains want you to do.
These criminal chatbots hang around on social media sites or in messaging apps, throwing up conversational lines to try and hook somebody. Some are designed to befriend people, and to make their victims trust them, before trying to get cash out of them or going for identity theft. Others are more blunt, and attempt to lure people to websites filled with malware.
You just can’t trust anyone these days!
Source: New Scientist 23 June 2012 (web version is subscription only: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428705.900-silicon-sirens-the-naughty-bots-out-to-seduce-you.html)
