Think You're Safe? AI Phishing Attacks Are Only $5 and Harder to Spot Than Ever

While there are some AI tools restricted for use which can put you in jail for five years, there's no punishment for hackers who use advanced AI tools for phishing attacks. McAfee conducted research which found that the cost of advanced and sophisticated email attacks is shockingly low, starting at just $5. A security expert shared his experience of almost becoming a victim of an AI-powered phishing attack and said it was one of the most sophisticated attacks he has ever seen. The attackers attacked his Gmail account but he was lucky enough to stop it before it could do more damage.

AI-driven phishing attacks are almost impossible to detect, even for experts, and the consequences of these attacks can make a lot of information of victims compromised. These attacks are very affordable for hackers to carry out and not expensive at all.

Beyond AI-driven phishing, scams continue to evolve with alarming sophistication. The most reported scams include fake shipping notifications (36%), tricking users into clicking malicious links under the guise of delivery issues. Account verification scams (29%) threaten to suspend accounts unless sensitive details are provided, while special offers or deals (24%) lure victims with promises of freebies or massive discounts, only to harvest personal data. Other prevalent scams involve subscription renewals (22%), fake invoices (21%), and fabricated news videos (21%) designed to manipulate emotions and extract information.

McAfee’s State of Scamiverse report also found that a convincing deep fake can easily be created in less than 10 minutes for just $5. On average, 2.6 deep fake videos are being encountered by Americans daily, while the younger audience (18-24) more frequently, around 3.5 times daily. Victims of AI phishing scams lose between $500 to $5000. In 64% of the cases, hackers successfully get money from victims in under an hour. To spot a deep-fake, look for signs like unnatural blinking, strange backgrounds or distorted voices in the videos. Avoid clicking links on unsolicited messages and double check shocking claims through reliable sources.

Read next: The Hidden Dangers of Free Movies, Software and Games: How Pirated Sites Harm Your System
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

The Hidden Dangers of Free Movies, Software and Games: How Pirated Sites Harm Your System

Many of us watch free movies and play free games on pirated websites. But the question arises how these pirated websites provide us with free movies and games and how do they make money. The truth is that these websites cause us a lot of harm without us realizing it. There are a lot of websites on the internet which allow users to download movies, games or software/tools/apps for free. There are a lot of premium versions of games and apps available on the internet for free, as well as their cracked versions.

Most of these websites are making money through their advertising models. They show people different ads and make money from them but ads on these websites are often lead to illegal and deceptive platform. Most of these websites are run by people who do something shady behind the scenes. For example, you see an ad for mobile phones on one of those pirated websites and click on the ad. After opening the website, you put in your credit card information and order the phone but since the website isn't legitimate, your credit card information gets leaked and becomes a security hazard.

• Also read: Which media industry is most affected by piracy?

On the other hand, whenever a user opens one of these websites, they start running scripts and use the computer's power to mine cryptocurrency. This just means that it harms your computer without you realizing it. These websites also often inject scripts into computers that keep on running in background even after the website is closed which causes the computer to slow down.

Free movies or games that you download for pirated websites come with mining software hidden inside and once the game, movie or software is installed, the mining software starts running silently. As it works in the background, the website owners keep earning money while you pay electricity bills for running the extra load on your system. Once that software is installed, it stays on your system unless you reinstall windows or install special malware detection software to remove it.

Things get worse than you unknowingly using your electricity to mine cryptocurrency for someone else as these free software can easily hack into your computer as well. This is called session hijacking where hackers gain control of your online account without you knowing about it. This way hackers can also gain access to the credentials of popular accounts and cause further harm to creators or companies. 90% chance is that you will never know your system has been compromised until it's too late.

Now comes the question that if these websites are too dangerous, why aren't they shut down? The answer is that there's a big network of these illegal websites, with most of them operating from several countries and constantly changing their domain names to avoid legal actions. Most of the servers of these websites are often hosted in countries where legal proceedings are low or where copyright laws don't exist.

While the lure of free content is tempting, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Prioritizing cybersecurity and using legal platforms not only protects your devices but also supports creators and industries that rely on fair practices.

Beyond security risks, choosing legal, open-source tools and public domain content reflects moral responsibility. Even better, investing time in educational documentaries, learning a new skill, or healthy activities (both physical and digital) fosters personal growth instead of wasting hours on meaningless entertainment.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

President Trump Signs New Executive Order for US Sovereign Wealth Fund That Could Potentially Buy TikTok

President Donald Trump just put his signatures on a new executive order for America’s sovereign wealth fund. This can potentially purchase TikTok, he shared.

The news is massive as it finally puts out a solution for the future of the popular social media app whose status in America continued to hang in limbo. The fund’s creation will arise over the upcoming 12 months by America’s Treasury and Commerce Departments. However, it’s still not clear how this would take place.

There was some mention of tariffs, while others spoke about ‘intelligent’ things to assist with funding. Trump rolled out an executive order to delay the app’s ban by 75 days. This gave it time to breathe but also time to make wise decisions of partial ownership to an American company. However, the app stores are still dark, and therefore, users cannot download the app.

The president shared how he’s having talks with several people who are interested in buying the social media giant. In the past week, he even suggested how software giant Microsoft might even be a potential buyer. Before that, he was happy to see Tesla CEO Elon Musk make the purchase and the same was the case with Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison.

In terms of when we can hear a final say on TikTok’s future in the US and potential buyers, the president confirmed that this month is crucial.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: AI Apps Boom: General Assistants Dominate, ChatGPT Earns Big, Utility AI Surges 2990% YoY
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

AI Apps Boom: General Assistants Dominate, ChatGPT Earns Big, Utility AI Surges 2990% YoY

Appfigures released its AI report ttled Rise of AI Apps: Key Trends Shaping 2025 which talks about different demand, growth and revenue trends in AI that we can see this year. There has been a rise in AI apps and there’s been a demand for them globally. According to estimates by Appfigures, the US is gaining the most profits from AI apps, with 64% of the revenue of AI apps being from the US. This gain in revenue in the US started back in 2023 and it has been going up since. Other countries in top five are way behind the US in revenue, with the UK being responsible for 6% of revenue, Germany being responsible for 5% of revenue and China and Canada being responsible for 4% each revenue of AI apps. These figures seem small but these countries are gaining more than $100 million in consumer spendings on AI apps.

Developers may be thinking that the US seems like a good market but there’s a lot of competition too. Smart developers know that they can gain much more profit from smaller markets so they are optimizing there. The demand for AI apps is rising in all parts of the world and it is expected to rise even more. The quarterly revenue of AI apps has also increased a lot in the past year globally, with $221 million in the US alone and $150 in other top ten countries. This is a 16% increase from Q3 in the US and 32% increase from Q3 from other countries.

People often keep on asking if there’s money in AI and it’s funny because AI apps are making money more than anything. Latest AI industry report by Appfigures shows that AI is making more than $2 billion in 2025 and will generate much more moving forward. For the report, Appfigures analyzed different AI apps and divided them into 12 categories. When the apps were listed down according to the revenues they were generating, the top 1000 apps by revenue were General Assistants also known as thin wrappers. First party apps like ChatGPT and Claude weren’t added in this category and this category was all about third-party apps. These apps earned $726 million from App Store and Google Play in gross revenue.

ChatGPT was included in the Core Models category and got $541 million in gross revenue. Before ChatGPT, there was hype about Graphics Generators as well as Photo and Video Editors and these categories saw $210 million in revenue. The Utility category got $69 million in gross revenue which isn’t a lot compared to other categories but it has been growing a lot since 2024. So, this shows that demand for AI apps is rising and it is expected to rise even more in 2025.

So now comes the questions about opportunities for developers in AI apps and the answer is there’s countless opportunities in some categories. Obviously, releasing a thin wrapper isn’t going to do much in 2025 than it did in 2023 but there are some other opportunities Appfigues mentioned in their report that can get you into action. By looking at revenue and growth rate of some apps, it was easy to conclude where work can be done to gain the most advantage. Core Models and General Assistants were excluded from these analyses because anyone can build a new LLM.

The analysis showed that the Utility category has the most opportunities for developers, with fifth most revenue overall. It is not as saturated as Photo and Video Editing Apps and Graphics Generators, with 2990% YoY revenue growth in 2024. There are a lot of types in Utility categories like apps identifying plants and coins and it is growing to grow a lot to add more convenience in people’s lives.

The other category which can open a lot of opportunities is Voice records which is smaller but is growing quickly. Voice records have generated $24 million in revenue which is less but it is a 2770% YoY growth in 2024. Even though there was a little decline in this category in Q4 2024, a lot of more apps are being developed in this category. The report says that each category of AI apps saw a three digit increase which shows that there are a lot of opportunities for developers in AI apps.

Now comes the insights of age of users of AI apps and most of us will think that young people are the ones who use AI apps the most. Even though it is correct there are a lot of variations too. The young people between the ages of 18-24 are mostly the users of companion apps like Character AI, with 65% of its users being people in this age category. 56% of Education apps are also used by young people between ages 18-24 and 20% users are of 50+ ages.

On the other hand, 41% of users of Transcription Apps are 18-24 years old, while 23% users are 50+. Writing tools are also being used by 23% 50+ people while 48% 18-24 years old are using them. Music apps have the most share of 25-34 year olds (20%), the most among all categories. People of 34-49 ages are mostly using Health & Fitness apps, with 19% of users in this category.

So looking at all these age dynamics of users of different AI apps, one thing is interesting– even though young people (18-24) are the biggest users of these apps, older users (50+) are the second biggest. This shows that demand is increasing in all groups and while there are some most saturated apps, there are also less competitive categories with growing opportunities.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

EU Enforces AI Act, Bans High-Risk Systems, and Imposes Strict Compliance Rules

The European Union has confirmed how regulators will now ban using AI systems that pose high levels of risk or danger as per the latest AI Act.

February 2 was outlined to be the latest deadline on this front, featuring a comprehensive framework on what’s acceptable and what’s not. This law came into sight on August 1 and now its list of compliance deadlines is taking center stage.

The details outlined here are curated to include several different use cases where the technology could interact with different people. For instance, it might be a consumer application or a physical environment.

Through this latest bloc technique, four risk levels were identified. This includes minimal risk which will not feature any kind of regulatory oversight. Then limited risk is designed to entail customer service chatbots featuring light-weight regulatory oversight. In the end, high risk is for those featuring AI for serious life-changing matters including health. These will in turn have to deal with strict regulatory oversight. There is similarly a category for unacceptable risk that focuses more on compliance requirements that would be eliminated as a whole.

There were certain examples provided about behaviors deemed unacceptable. This includes social scoring, manipulating decisions, exploiting user vulnerabilities, and predicting crimes depending on physical appearance.

AI using biometrics to interfere with an individual’s characteristics such as gender and collecting real-time data in public places for the sake of law enforcement is similarly not acceptable. Any AI inferring emotions in a public place setting and those scraping pictures online through security devices such as cameras will similarly be eliminated.

Any company found guilty of being involved in the above AI applications will have to deal with fines, no matter where they might be located. This means it could give rise to bigger fines that go up to $36M. As of now, no date for when the fines would implemented was shared.

However, all companies need to be compliant by February 2 and the next major compliance deadline would be August for this year. This way, users will be aware of competent individuals and how enforcement provisions will come into play.

Some deem this latest deadline of February 2 as a formality. More than 100 different companies laid down a voluntary pledge to begin applying AI Act principles into this application. Signatories such as Amazon, OpenAI, and Google were said to be committed to highlighting any risks inside the systems that they feel to the greatest degree. However, it was interesting to note that several others such as Mistral, Apple, and Meta skipped being involved in this pact and decided not to sign.

So what does this mean? The companies that didn’t sign vow not to engage in such practices anyway. They are already mindful of the actions and which cases are prohibited as per experts.

This latest AI Act will not be working independently in the region. It will interact with the new AI Act but the question on many people’s minds is how the different laws will fit together and work as one. After all, they all have their own set of defined clauses coming into existence in one place.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: OpenAI Announces New AI Agent Designed to Assist People Carryout In-Depth and Complex Research
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

OpenAI Announces New AI Agent Designed to Assist People Carryout In-Depth and Complex Research

Tech giant OpenAI is releasing a new AI agent that was designed to assist users carry out in-depth and complex research through ChatGPT.

The latest offering dubbed Deep Research is said to be for those seeking extensive knowledge in the domain of science, finance, engineering, and policies. It’s also said to be useful for anyone who needs to make a big investment but needs more in-depth analysis to get that done.

In its latest blog post, the company shared how the latest capability was curated for those doing intensive knowledge such as a vehicle or furniture. So in other words, it’s created for situations where you require an instant summary or reply but instead require more detailed data from several different sources.

OpenAI says it’s giving the latest model to those with ChatGPT Pro today, limited to a few queries every month. After this, it hopes to share the model with users having Team and Plus, and also Enterprise. The tech giant also shared how the launch is geo-targeted. The company had zero release timeline to share for those located in the UK region, including Switzerland, and the EU.

To better use the tool, you just need to select the term Deep Research through the drop-down menu and generate a question. You then have the option to attach files or any spreadsheet. It might take 5 to 30 minutes to provide a reply, and users will be presented with an alert when their search is done.

For now, the tool’s outputs are based solely on text. However, the company does intend to include embedded pictures, analytic outputs, and more data visualizations. Meanwhile, the roadmap also features the option to link more intricate data sources such as those linked to subscriptions and internal sources.

The biggest query right now is levels for precision. AI is more than perfect and could give rise to more hallucinations and different errors that might be dangerous in scenarios related to deep research. This is why the tool will document every output when carrying out deep research. It will entail summaries of the thinking process and outlined citations clearly. This helps in the verification of data and also in the referencing process.

We’ve already seen the ChatGPT on web searches make frequent errors and give misinformation. Furthermore, tests showed how it gave rise to less reliable results in comparison to Google Search for any questions.

The company tried to defend the latest model’s accuracy with the use of o3 reasoning for different AI models. It was also trained through reinforced learning techniques on tasks done in real-time.

Reinforcement learning assists the model through trial and error techniques. As it gets near the goal of producing an answer, it gets virtual rewards to make it more competent for future tasks.

Read next: New Survey Shows Goals and Challenges Small Businesses Have and What they Think of AI
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Survey Shows Goals and Challenges Small Businesses Have and What they Think of AI

According to recent research from Taradel, small businesses are currently facing challenges such as limited budgets and lead generation difficulties. The report conducted a survey among 226 small businesses and found out what top challenges they are facing, what are their goals and what do they think about AI usage. 27% of the small businesses surveyed said that budgeting is their main challenge right now while 30% said that driving lead generation is the top marketing challenge they are facing in their business.

On the other hand, talking about their business goals, 55.6% of the small businesses said that prioritizing increasing sales is their top goal right now, with 19.2% said their main goal is to generate leads. 12% said that they are aiming to build their brand awareness right now. Reducing costs, retaining existing customers and launching or growing ecommerce business are also some of the main goals defined by small businesses which were surveyed. Talking about generating leads, 24% prefer phone calls while 22% small businesses prefer in-business consultations.

63% of the small businesses said that social media platforms are a great way to maintain their online presence. Facebook and Instagram are top social media platforms for small businesses while email remains the number one offline platform for small business marketing. Small businesses were also asked about their thoughts on AI and 43% said that they do not use AI tools at all. 34% said they use AI tools a little while 18% said they use AI tools extensively. Most small businesses surveyed said that they are using AI for content creation, email marketing and social media management. Only 9% of the small businesses said that their marketing tactics are highly effective while 21% said their marketing tactics are not effective at all.

Read next: Global AI Safety Report Warns of Cyber Threats, Manipulation, and Weaponization Risks
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World