McAfee launches fraud detector to stop scams before they happen

Scams are everywhere. McAfeeOur new fraud detector detects and stops scams via text, email and video to protect you from being scammed.

McAfee Announced today on Consumer Electronics Show 2025 Launch McAfee Scam Detector – the most comprehensive protection against text, email, and video scams. Today’s scams are smarter, more deceptive, and more convincing than ever before, and they are everywhere. One in three Americans admit to being the victim of a scam via text, email or video in the past 12 months.

From fake emails and suspicious texts to fake videos that look incredibly real, scammers use clever tricks to steal people’s money and personal information. McAfee helps consumers take back control with AI-powered McAfee Scam Detector to stop scammers in their tracks.

McAfee uses AI to try to stop scams before they happen by automatically detecting scams or potential scams. Scammers have a few things working in their favor, said Steve Grubman, chief technology officer at McAfee, in an interview with GamesBeat.

The first is the presence of a large number of private communication channels in which there is not necessarily an intermediary, as in encrypted messages or direct messages. They may be communicating with the victim, you know, under the guise of security. The other part is real-time, which is one of the reasons McAfee made its deepfake detection product work on any video stream on the web, Grubman said.

Starting this spring, McAfee’s Scam Detector will be included at no additional cost to McAfee customers. This must-have product uses the latest advanced AI technology to proactively analyze and report dangerous messages in real-time. That “Hi, how are you?” Text message from a stranger? It is one of the best text scams of 2024.

I received a fraudulent email about using an automated document signing service, with an attachment that says “Termination of Non-Disclosure Agreement.” I almost fell in love with this person, given the urgency with which I connected with him. (I was not expelled).

Urgent email about delivery failure? Maybe fake. And no, Elon Musk does not have a unique investment opportunity for you. McAfee makes it easy to tell the real thing from the fake in seconds and gives you a great set of tips and techniques to keep scams out of your life for good.

“I think the smartest thing is customization,” Grubman said. “One of the things we’ve seen is job scams, where people make their search public, and these scams take the form of taking your job interview to the next level, but they require a background check and we ask the applicant to pay for the background check.”

He said the scam scanning works in real time, making it possible to catch fraudsters at the right times.

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A year ago, Grubman talked to me about focusing on fraud defense in three areas: fraud that comes through email, fraud that comes through text, and then fraud that users experience, in general, in other forms of media like video. .

To address this, the company developed advanced AI models to protect consumers in these three areas and began deploying them in late 2024. One of these models was a deepfake detector to help consumers determine whether AI-generated videos are fake videos. Created by artificial intelligence or is it original?

The company also conducted technology previews of our other methods, namely email and text messaging.

“Now as we move into 2025, we are very excited to take all of these technologies to a much broader scale by making them available to the vast majority of our customers,” Grubman said. “We are developing our AI models to take advantage of advanced AI PCs when there is an advanced AI PC. So we can run our AI models on an NPU (personal computer), but we also have the ability “It can run on other inference engines, either CPU or GPU, which is able to give us broader scale, and give capabilities to a broader range of users.”

Email fraud defense will go beyond just the technology preview McAfee made in 2024 as it was available for Microsoft-based email features. Now it can support Gmail and other features.

“In the 2025 offerings, we developed advanced deepfake detection technology. So we partnered with Yahoo News in 2024 around helping ensure that the images that come across the news, that their editors, their quality assurance staff, can detect the best If anything it was created using AI image generation technology and helping provide that insight.”

Protect people in Scamiverse today

Every day, scammers trick people with fake emails, texts and videos, and the results can be devastating. Americans report receiving 12 scam messages a day, losing up to $1,000 when they fall for one, and spending 80 hours a year trying to figure out whether the onslaught of messages they receive are real or fake, according to a McAfee survey. Deep scams, which use artificial intelligence to create fake videos, can be even worse — some people have lost up to half a million dollars, based on a McAfee survey.

It’s clear that scams are draining people’s time, energy and money.

“I’ve been having more problems with scam texts lately. I would say that over the last year, it’s been bad. I’ve been getting a lot of unwanted emails, texts and calls,” said Tina, 31, from South Carolina. . “It’s a lot.”

“It was a fake UPS email. I thought I had signed up to change my address, and instead my credit card was charged,” said Alexandria, 46, of Georgia.

Haley, 24, from New Jersey, said: “Although I love new technology, I have been very afraid of the videos and information generated by artificial intelligence since I saw how realistic it is.”

“Scammers are getting smarter every day, using technology like artificial intelligence to make their scams more convincing and harder to detect,” Grubman said. “They manipulate people’s emotions — like fear, urgency, or trust — to get what they want. That’s why we created McAfee Scam Detector. It warns you of scams before they do harm, helps you take control of your personal information, and helps you build the necessary skills To beat scammers forever.

MAfee has seen a lot of holiday scams, offering good deals to shoppers during the recent holiday season, Grubman said.

“They offer deals that are too good to be true,” Grubman said. “Cybercriminals extort money from their victims, and generative AI makes them more effective and efficient as well.”

How McAfee Fraud Detector Works

McAfee’s Scam Detector is powered by Smart AI, the same technology that makes McAfee’s online protection so award-winning and reliable. Here’s what this comprehensive protection does to keep people safe from emails, texts, and video scams:

Electronic fraud detector: Scans your inbox for suspicious emails and flags dangerous messages before you open them. It also explains why the message is dangerous, so you know what to look for next time.

Text fraud detector: Detects suspicious texts that scammers use to trick you into giving them money or clicking on bad links, flags messages as dangerous before you open them, and gives you clear explanations of why they are dangerous. You need the McAfee mobile app for iOS or Android to enable this. You can only enable this on the app.

Deep fake detector: Detects AI-generated videos, letting you know if something you’re watching might not be what it seems. Whether it’s someone pretending to be your boss or a fake celebrity endorsement, McAfee makes sure you’re not being scammed. Innovation in deepfake detection continues as we expand into more languages ​​and will soon work seamlessly wherever you’re connected to the Internet – across phones, tablets, laptops and more.
Desktop computers.

A deepfake detector for AI-enabled PCs is currently available and McAfee will expand that to the vast majority of modern PCs, Grubman said.

By running deepfake detection at the edge on the user’s computer, the system is optimized for privacy and response time.

“If we detect something from the stream, we give that information to the user immediately and we have no latency,” he said. “We are taking full advantage of the innovation that has occurred in the hardware ecosystem and hardware ecosystem.”

McAfee is also showing off at CES its technology that works on Mac, Android and Chromebook devices, and goes beyond AI-based protection on Microsoft Windows.

Simple and easy protection for everyone

Free for McAfee customers: Soon, McAfee Scam Detector will be included in all McAfee+, McAfee Total Protection, and McAfee LiveSafe plans at no additional cost.

Works instantlyOnce set up, Scam Detector starts working immediately. No more copying, pasting, or guessing if a message is fake — McAfee does it for you.

Protects you wherever you are online: Whether you’re using a phone, laptop, tablet, or Chromebook, Scam Detector keeps you safe.

For more tips on avoiding scams and staying safe online, visit the McAfee Smart AITM Hub at mcafee.ai.