McAfee launches a scam detector to stop scams before they strike

Scams are everywhere. McAfeeThe new scam detector detects and stops scams via SMS, email and video to prevent you from being fooled.

Today at CES 2025, McAfee announced the launch of McAfee Scam Detector – the most comprehensive protection against text, email and video fraud. Today’s scams are smarter, sneakier and more convincing than ever – and they’re everywhere. One in three Americans admits to having experienced text, email or video fraud in the past 12 months.

From fake emails and suspicious text messages to deepfake videos that look incredibly real, scammers are using clever tricks to steal people’s money and personal information. McAfee helps consumers take back control with the AI-powered McAfee Scam Detector to stop scammers.

McAfee uses AI to stop scams before they strike, through automatic detection of scams or potential scams. Scammers have a number of things working in their favor, said Steve Grobman, CTO of McAfee, in an interview with GamesBeat.

One is that there are a large number of private communication channels that do not necessarily have a moderator, such as encrypted messages or direct messages. They could communicate with the victim under the guise of providing security. The other piece is real-time, and it’s one of the reasons McAfee has made its deepfake detector product work on every video stream on the Internet, Grobman said.

Starting this spring, McAfee’s Scam Detector will be included free of charge for McAfee customers. This must-have product uses the latest advanced AI technology to proactively analyze and flag risky messages in real time. That ‘Hello, how are you?’ text from a stranger? It is one of the biggest text message scams of 2024.

I received a scam email about using an automated document signing service, with an attachment that said “termination non-disclosure agreement.” I almost fell for it, given the urgency I associated with it. (I wasn’t fired).

An urgent email about a failed delivery? Probably fake. And no, Elon Musk does not have a unique investment opportunity for you. McAfee makes it easy to tell the real from the fake in seconds and gives you the winning combination of tips and technology to keep scams out of your life for good.

“I think the smartest thing is the personalization,” Grobman said. “One of the things we’ve seen is job fraud, where people have made their search public, and those scams take the form where you take your job interview to the next level, but it requires a background check and we require the applicant that he pays for the background check.”

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

Background

A year ago, Grobman spoke to me about focusing on defending against scams in three areas: scams that come through email, scams that come through text, and then scams that users are exposed to more generally, in other media forms such as video.

To address this, the company has developed advanced AI models to protect consumers in all three of these areas and will begin implementing them in late 2024. One of these was a deepfake detector to help consumers identify whether AI-generated videos are AI-generated and not authentic.

The company also provided technology previews for our other modalities, namely email and SMS.

“And as we move into 2025, we are very excited to bring all of these technologies to a much larger scale by making them available to the vast majority of our customers,” said Grobman. “We are evolving our AI models to take advantage of advanced AI PCs when an advanced AI PC is present. So we can run our AI models on the [PC’s own] NPU, but we also have the ability to run on other inference engines, both CPU and GPU, which can give us a broader reach and provide capabilities to a broader group of users.

The defense against email scams goes beyond a technology preview that McAfee did in 2024, where it was available for Microsoft-based email properties. Now it can support Gmail and other features.

“In our 2025 offering, we have developed advanced technology to detect deep fake images. That’s why we partnered with Yahoo News in 2024 to ensure that images coming through the news pipeline so that their editors, their quality assurance staff, could best detect if something was being generated with AI image generation technology and help provide that insight. ”

Protecting people in today’s Scamiverse

Every day, scammers trick people with fake emails, text messages, and videos, and the results can be devastating. Americans report receiving 12 scam messages a day, losing as much as $1,000 if they fall for them, and spending 80 hours a year simply figuring out whether the barrage of messages they receive are real or fake, according to a McAfee study. And deepfake scams, which use AI to create fake videos, could be even worse, with some people losing up to half a million dollars, a McAfee study shows.

It’s clear that scams have taken a toll on people’s time, energy and finances.

“I’ve been having more problems with scam texts lately. I’d say it’s just been bad this past year. Like I’ve been getting a lot of spam emails, text messages, phone calls… it’s a lot,” said Tina, 31, in South Carolina.

“It was a fake email from UPS. I thought I was signing up to change my address, but instead my credit card was charged,” said Alexandria, 46, in Georgia.

“While I love new technology, I have been very afraid of AI-generated videos and information since I saw how realistic they can be,” says Haley, 24, from New Jersey.

“Scammers are getting smarter every day and are using technology like artificial intelligence to make their tricks more convincing and harder to spot,” Grobman said. “They play on people’s emotions – such as fear, urgency or confidence – to get what they want. That’s why we created McAfee Scam Detector. It alerts you to a scam before it can do any damage, helps you stay in control of your personal information, and helps you build the skills needed to outsmart scammers for good.”

Grobman said MAfee has seen a lot of holiday scams over the past few holidays, offering good deals to shoppers.

“They offer deals that are too good to be true,” Grobman said. “Cybercriminals are in the business of extorting money from their victims, and generative AI also makes them more effective and efficient.”

How McAfee’s scam detector works

McAfee’s Scam Detector is powered by Smart AI, the same technology that makes McAfee’s award-winning online protection so reliable. Here’s what this all-in-one protection does to protect people from email, text messaging, and video fraud:

Email scam detector: Scans your inbox for suspicious emails and flags risky messages before you even open them. It also explains why a message is dangerous, so that you know what to look out 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 risky messages before you open them and gives you clear explanations as to why they are dangerous. To enable this you will need the McAfee mobile app for iOS or Android. You would just enable this in the app.

Deepfake detector: Spots AI-created videos and lets 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 endorsement from a celebrity, McAfee will make sure you aren’t fooled. Deepfake detection innovation continues to expand to more languages ​​and will soon work seamlessly wherever you are online – on phones, tablets, laptops and
desktops.

The deep fake detector for AI PCs is currently available and McAfee will expand it to the vast majority of modern PCs, Grobman said.

Performing deepfake detection at the edge of a user’s PC optimizes the system for privacy and latency.

“When we detect something through streaming, 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 taken place in the hardware ecosystem and the device ecosystem.”

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

Simple, easy protection for everyone

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

Works immediately: Once Scam Detector is set up, it gets to work immediately. No need to copy, paste or wonder if a message is fake: McAfee does it for you.

Protects you wherever you are online: Whether you use a phone, laptop, tablet or Chromebook, Scam Detector will keep you safe.

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