Your face. Your voice. Your words – used against you. In the age of AI, deception just became terrifyingly personal.

The Age of Synthetic Trust

We are entering a new phase of cyber deception – one where scams don’t just pretend to be real. They feel real.

In DECEIVED – Why We Click, Trust, and Get Hacked, Andy explores how AI has transformed the game of manipulation. What once relied on generic phishing templates and poor grammar now leverages:

  • AI-written phishing messages in perfect tone
  • Deepfake voice and video impersonations
  • Hyper-targeted scams using scraped personal data
  • Automated social engineering scaled to thousands

The result? Hyper-personalised deception – where you’re not just the target of a scam, you’re the subject line.

Deepfakes: Performing Trust at Scale

In the book, Andy examines how deepfake technology has advanced to the point where it can replicate facial movements, vocal tones, and even real-time interaction. This isn’t a sci-fi subplot. It’s already being used in scams:

  • Fake CEO video calls instructing urgent payments
  • Impersonated voices of family members in distress
  • Synthetic media deployed in fraud, extortion, and disinformation

The danger of deepfakes lies not just in what they say, but in who we believe is saying it. Our brain trusts faces. It recognises familiar expressions. And when those signals are hijacked, our natural defences falter.

AI-Generated Phishing: Convincing, Fast, and Custom-Tailored

Traditional phishing was easy to spot. Bad grammar. Strange formatting. Generic greetings.

AI changed all that.

Now, attackers use large language models to write emotionally intelligent, grammatically flawless messages. They can mimic internal communication styles, reference actual events (scraped from social media), and dynamically respond to replies.

In DECEIVED, Andy shows how this evolution makes phishing feel like a real conversation. The moment of deception becomes less about content, and more about timing and tone – two things AI is mastering.

Synthetic Identity Fraud: Frankenstein’s Digital Twin

One of the most chilling trends explored in the book is synthetic identity creation – where attackers merge real data (yours) with fake data to create believable personas.

This enables:

  • Opening bank accounts
  • Passing facial recognition
  • Applying for credit
  • Conducting scams from “trusted” profiles

In DECEIVED, Andy walks through how these identities are weaponised to bypass digital defences – not through brute force, but through trust engineering.

Trust Is Now a Liability

As Andy writes in the book, “the traditional markers we use to judge authenticity – tone, spelling, fluency, video, and voice – are now obsolete.”

That’s the core insight: deception has evolved faster than human intuition.

When even your own voice can be cloned in seconds, the line between truth and illusion collapses. In this world, your instincts become exploitable unless you retrain them.

What Matters Now: Behavioural Resilience

The AI arms race won’t be won with firewalls alone.

It requires:

  • Awareness of emotional manipulation
  • Verification, not assumption
  • Cultures of digital doubt, not blind trust
  • Education on why we trust, not just what to click

That’s what DECEIVED is about. Not just the tactics, but the psychology underneath them. Because your behaviour – under pressure, in a rush, or off-guard – is what today’s scams are designed to target.

Final Thought

In an AI-powered threat landscape, your face, your voice, and even your digital habits can be used against you.

But awareness is the first defence. Understanding the tactics, and your reactions to them, can turn the tide.


📘 Want to explore the psychology behind modern cyber deception?

Read: DECEIVED – Why We Click, Trust, and Get Hacked


➡️ A behavioural science journey through the evolution of scams – from folklore to deepfakes.



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