Americans lost nearly $21 billion to cyber-enabled crime in 2025, according to the FBI, a 26% increase on the previous year, with investment fraud accounting for the largest share at roughly $8.65 billion. The tech commentator known as "CyberGuy" (Kurt Knutsson) highlights the figures alongside a growing concern that artificial intelligence is making scams far more convincing, eroding the old advice of watching for poor grammar or suspicious-sounding callers as warning signs.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 22,364 complaints in 2025 that referenced AI, linked to about $893 million in losses, with criminals using the technology to create fake social media profiles, cloned voices and realistic videos to build trust before requesting money or personal details. In response, the article sets out five practical safeguards: enabling instant alerts on bank and credit card accounts, strengthening account logins with unique passwords and two-factor authentication, protecting phone numbers against SIM-swap attacks, freezing credit, and securing retirement accounts against unauthorised transfers.