‘Catch Me If You Can’ Con Artist Frank Abagnale Warns AI Is Making Financial Fraud Easier Than Ever

Frank Abagnale believes that artificial intelligence is making it faster and simpler to commit financial fraud than ever before. Abagnale, whose exploits were featured in the Steven Spielberg film "Catch Me If You Can," has since spent 50 years helping the FBI spot fraud. He freezes his credit, doesn't write a lot of checks, and doesn't keep a lot of apps on his phone. But protecting yourself from modern scams must go far beyond that, he said.At a Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Washington, DC, Abagnale told business leaders that criminals are already making it harder to detect financial fraud."Verification must replace trust. In the environment today, you absolutely, positively need to know who's on the other end of that device before you send them any money or information," Abagnale said."Fraud today is less about breaking systems and more about influencing people."Abagnale said that considering the long history of data breaches among business leaders and government agencies over the past few years, it's easiest to assume that everyone's identity has already been stolen. And those who steal the information package it and resell it years later."What used to take hours a...