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Comment by skeeter2020 | Hacker News Reader

skeeter2020

>> So far, it seems to be a bog-standard phishing email

The fact this is NOT the standard phishing email shows how low the bar is:

1. the text of the email reads like one you'd get from npm in the tone, format and lack of obvious spelling & grammatical errors. It pushes you to move quicker than you might normally, without triggering the typical suspicions.

2. the landing domain and website copy seem really close to legit, no obfuscated massive subdomain, no uncanny login screen, etc.

All the talk of AI disrupting tech; this is an angle where generative AI can have a massive impact in democratizing the global phishing industry. I do agree with you that there's likely many more authors who have been tricked and we haven't seen the full fallout.

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It's just a phishing email... there isn't anything novel going on here.

Also, I really don't see what this has to do with gen AI, or what "democratizing the global phishing industry" is supposed to mean even.

Is this comment AI generated?

If your someone who barely speaks English in a third world country running a phishing campaign, you can have chatgpt write you a professional sounding email in 10 seconds. If you convince it your running a phishing test you can probably even have a back and forth about the entire design and wording of the email and phishing site.

That's what I'm guessing OP meant.

Both of those points are fairly common in phishing emails, at least the ones I receive. Cloning the HTML/CSS for phishing has been done for as long as I've been able to receive emails, don't even need LLMs for that :)

How does AI relate to this in any way? you can easily clone websites by just copying via devtools, like seriously

same with just copying email HTML

it's actually easier to make it looke exactly the same vs different in some ways

You can make your phishing bot write tailor-made messages and even respond

> the text of the email reads like one you'd get from npm in the tone, format and lack of obvious spelling & grammatical errors.

As a university professor whose email address is public, I've been regularly getting phishing emails for years. Many of these are targeted and devoid of any spelling or grammatical errors. I am sure generative AI is making writing these emails easier but by how much is unknown.

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