'Bad AI' is making scams harder to spot. Here's how Virgin Media has you covered

From convincing phishing emails and fake shopping websites to scam calls that can mimic a family member's voice, AI is helping criminals create scams that are more believable than ever before.

Not only can AI help scammers create more convincing scams, but it also allows them to create far more of them in a much shorter time. Criminals can use AI to generate thousands of fake websites and personalised scam messages in minutes, making it easier to target more people, more often.

It's no wonder that, according to F-Secure research, 87% of UK consumers are concerned AI will make it impossible to tell what's real online.

The good news is that while scammers are using AI to evolve their tactics, security technology is evolving too. Virgin Media's Essential Security and Advanced Security are designed to help protect you against evolving online threats, helping you stay safer online in an age of ''Bad AI'.

Read on to find out what we mean by 'Bad AI' – and how Virgin Media helps keep you safe.

'Bad AI' is AI that’s being used by criminals. Instead of spending hours writing scam emails or building fake websites, fraudsters can now use AI to do it in seconds.

They can copy trusted brands, generate convincing shopping websites, write personalised phishing emails and even create fake voices that sound like someone you know.

AI has also lowered the barrier to cybercrime. Criminals no longer need advanced technical skills to launch convincing scams, with ready-made phishing tools and AI software making sophisticated attacks easier and cheaper to carry out.

The result? More scams, more often, and they're getting harder to spot.

Essential Security comes with your Virgin Media broadband and is switched on automatically, at no extra cost. There's nothing to download or set up – it just works in the background to help keep you safe online.

More and more scammers are using AI to create convincing fake websites in minutes. While many of them only stay live for a few hours before they're taken down, new ones pop up just as quickly. Fraudsters deliberately keep these fake sites short-lived because the longer they remain online, the more likely they are to be detected and taken down.

That's why Essential Security doesn't just rely on lists of known scam websites. It's backed by Akamai’s threat intelligence, which is updated continuously and automatically spot and block new malicious sites as soon as they're discovered. Akamai analyses more than one-third of all global web traffic daily and identifies hundreds of billions of web, API, and network threats every year.

So, if you click a link in a phishing email or text message, Essential Security checks the website before your device connects to it. And if it identifies it as malicious, it'll block the connection before the page loads and show you a warning instead.

Since Essential Security protects your broadband connection, everyone using your home WiFi gets the same protection automatically – with no apps to install, no settings to change, and nothing extra to do.

While Essential Security protects you at home, Advanced Security extends that protection wherever you go. As cybercriminals increasingly use AI to create personalised scams and launch attacks at scale, Advanced Security goes one step further by identifying suspicious activity in real time, so you can browse, shop and bank online with greater confidence wherever you are.

It does this through AI-powered scam detection to warn you about suspicious online stores before you enter your payment details, helping you avoid fake shopping websites created by criminals.

It can also automatically block malicious SMS links, helping protect you from text message scams that encourage you to click urgently, which is extra important with smishing scams becoming harder to spot with scammers using AI.

As a Virgin Media customer, you’re entitled to a 3-month free trial to test it our for yourself. This means you get full protection, powered by F-Secure, to test for nothing. And if you’re not happy with the service after your three-month trial you can let your trial expire and not pay a penny.

Interested? Find out more about Advanced Security by Virgin Media

AI has made it easier for criminals to create convincing scams at scale, but Virgin Media's security tools are designed to make it harder for those scams to succeed.

Essential Security helps stop malicious websites before they become a threat, while Advanced Security adds protection beyond your home network with AI-powered scam detection and protection.

Together, they provide multiple layers of defence against the kinds of AI-driven threats becoming more common online today.

Want to learn more? Head over to our Essential Security and Advanced Security page to explore all the features available, see how they work, and find the level of protection that's right for you and your family.