Reformed hacker warns of 3 rising cyber threats - and how to protect yourself

"Brett Johnson spent over a decade breaking into systems, stealing identities, and selling stolen credit cards on the dark web. He stole millions of dollars, often making over $100,000 a month through tax-return identity theft. He's worked with the Secret Service and private companies as a consultant to help stop the kinds of crimes he once perpetrated. He told Business Insider's Carter Thallon in a recent interview that the crime world he helped invent is mutating into something harder to see - and almost impossible to stop."

"Cybercrime is becoming increasingly organized, and that's a problem, he said. The next wave of cybercrime will come from entire operations powered by artificial intelligence, where machines write the scams, fake the evidence, and even talk to the victims in real time."

"Johnson said deepfakes that convincingly mimic real people will become central to online fraud. Criminals already use them to forge voice messages and fake live video calls. Soon, this technology will make it impossible to trust what we see or hear online, Johnson said. "In order for me to defraud you, I have to get you to trust me," he said. However, deepfakes enable criminals to essentially bypass the effort of gaining trust by posing as an already trustworthy person, accelerating the process of victimizing you. One finance clerk, last year, for example, was conned into approving overseas transfers amounting to more than $25 million, Shubham Agarwal reported for BI. The clerk had been instructed to do so during a video call that turned out to be full of"

Brett Johnson made millions committing identity theft, breaking into systems, stealing identities, and selling stolen credit cards on the dark web before later working with the Secret Service and private companies as a consultant. Cybercrime is becoming more organized and is shifting toward AI-powered operations that can write scams, fake evidence, and interact with victims in real time. Three rising threats are convincing deepfakes that impersonate trusted people, large scam farms that professionalize fraud, and synthetic IDs that blend real and fabricated data to pass checks. Recommended protections include freezing credit and setting up fraud alerts.

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