Odds are this sort of scam would likely attempt to install some form of RAT malware on your device, which is arguably one of the single most dangerous sorts of malware you could ever possibly get.
YOU NEVER EVER FUCKING WANT TO GET A RAT ON YOUR DEVICE. EVER.
I am not joking when I say I'd much rather get basically any other kind of malware over a RAT.
RAT stands for "Remote Access Trojan," and it basically gives the malicious person (or even multiple people) full unauthorized access to your device as if they were standing in front of it using it irl. They can even activate the camera and microphone. Completely unauthorized and look and listen to you if they really wanted to. But mainly they're just used to steal important login info, credit cards, and passwords, as well as pose as the real you to any contacts they find on your device and shit. The worst part is oftentimes it is impossible to catch before it's too late, and they tend to be really sneaky and actually hide as much as they can and slooowly but surely fuck shit up because the longer they have access to your device before you catch it and remove the RAT, the more info they can get on you. (Although not all RATs play the long game. Other RATs go for a rushdown approach instead where they immediately fuck up as much shit as they can to overwhelm the user before it's possible to do anything.)
However, RATs can also be used in far, far more fucked up ways then even just yoinking sensitive info like credit cards and account info. They literally can be used to spy on you 1984 style if the attacker(s) so choose. And sometimes later on, the plan is for what they learned, saw, and heard about you to be to be used as blackmail when they feel the time is right. They can literally turn on your camera and see your face and turn on your mic and listen to you if they so desire. They can threaten to dox you if you don't comply among other things.
And while overing your face cam when not in use is a good preventative measure to avoid them actually seeing your face, attackers are aware that this is a common precaution used and they begin working on other ways to extort you without your knowledge despite the limitation of no webcam access.
And they can do a lot of damage in the blackmail department just by using your devices microphone instead, which is much harder for a user to realize compared to a webcam being used, too.
And if you're wondering what the hell they can even use against you with just your microphone and your voice trust me, they can more tuan work with your voice alone. And it goes far beyond recording you saying some fucked up thing or something out of context or whatever else and using that as blackmail. No, it gets way worse than that. Recording your voice without your knowledge has honestly led to some of the most fucked up scams I've ever heard of. Shit that is truly vile and the lengths they will go to even be able pull off a scam like this may sound nuts, but considering the outcome is almost always successful if it reaches the end goal, they are absolutely willing to go through the effort to pull it off.
There is a thing they do where they will train an ai based off from your voice that they get from the microphone, and then find a contact on your device they deem a good target, typically a close family member or your partner. They also prefer to target older people, and especially love to target parents and grandparents, but they will still target anyone they deem are most likely to fall for what they are trying to do, it's just thet odds are parents and grandparents are the most likely to fall for it without getting the advice from someone else in the family compared to other close loved ones, such as spouses, partners, cousins, and especially friends. Also worth noting that while they'll still target children, sons, and daughters, they are less inclined to since the child may be too young to even have money to extort, and even if the child does, odds are much higher young people will know it's a scam, but again, just because a relation to the target isn't as likely to be picked as others, doesn't mean it never happens.
I'm saying all this, because whomever they choose to target they will literally CALL their phone or contact them through some other method, and use that ai to perfectly impersonate YOU as if YOU were really the one speaking to your loved one. And Ai voice that was TRAINED WITHOUT YOU EVER KNOWING since odds are if the scammer go to this point, you haven't caught the fact you have a RAT on your device.
And this is used to trick your loved ones into thinking it is you, and odds are they will fall for it. Again, this is why I said scammers are willing to do so much setup for this sort of scam, if it gets to this point, the success rate is very high, especially compared to other scams. Your family members would likely not think twice that they could be talking to a decoy or an ai of you, and won't even think to actually call your real phone number or contact you legitimately, or even contact other loved ones before just listening to whatever the ai bot is telling them. The only thing that really stops this in it's tracks, outside of being aware of this scam and double checking if you're saying something weird to them or are talking in a very subtle way that isn't normal, is if you are actually present in the same area if they end up getting a call from an ai bot impersonating you. Because if you're right next to them or are visiting them or whatever, they're gonna know right away that something is wrong.
Now they can use an ai voice of you for a lot of stuff, most commonly it's just various subtle methods of trying to get money from the loved one. However, they can also do way WAY more fucked up shit. They will go as far as to pretend you are kidnapped, and demand an immediate ransom or you will be gone forever, or even killed if the viticim does not comply and fall for their scam. They can also fake your voice as if you're calling from a jail and need to be bailed. Some are even pretending to have their target be captured by ICE and using an ai of their voice calling a loved on to ask for money to he let free, and that's just the tip of the iceburg.
And once they have your voice and trained an ai bot off it, even if catch the RAT and get it off your system, your voice is still gone. That's the really fucked up part.
And the worst part is you likely never even knew you ever had a RAT on your system in the first place, they are by design made to hide, especially if they are being used with the purpose of blackmail instead of yoinking account, bank, and credit card info.
You seriously DO NOT ever want to get a fucking RAT malware, and these sorts of files are one of the types that makes RAT exploits very easy to hide. DO NOT EVER OPEN VBS FILES UNLESS YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE OR YOU MADE ONE YOURSELF.
And one last thing on the topic of RATs, if you ever played Animal Crossing New Leaf on a 3DS when online services were still up, there was actually a fucking exploit that malicious hackers used to install a RAT on your LITERAL 3DS console, and this actually wasn't known until very recently since it was kept under tight lips for basically the entire online scene of the game. That is actually a really damn good reason to mod your 3DS just to ensure you don't still have that RAT on there even if you stopped playing ACNL online over a decade ago, and if you do, to wipe it.
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