Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Digital fraud and spam schemes are a global problem, but you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere more inundated than the United States. And the problem is only getting worse. The glaring statistics are on display in at least two sizable surveys released ahead of October's Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Consumer Reports' fourth annual digital assessment shows a 50 percent increase in texting and messaging scam attempts over the past year.

An elderly grandmother who chats about knitting patterns, recipes for scones and the blackness of the night sky to anyone who will listen has become an unlikely tool in combatting scammers. Like many people, "Daisy" is beset with countless calls from fraudsters, who often try to take control of her computer after claiming she has been hacked. But because of her dithering and inquiries about whether they like cups of tea, the criminals end up furious and frustrated rather than successful. Daisy is, of course, not a real grandmother but an AI bot created by computer scientists to combat fraud. Her task is simply to waste the time of the people who are trying to scam her.

An Arizona family was terrified a few months ago when what they thought was a kidnapping and ransom call turned out to be a total scam created by artificial intelligence. As reports grow of scam calls that sound identical to loved ones, many fear that AI could be weaponized to threaten people with technology that's easy to access and only requires a small fee, several minutes and a stable internet connection. Jennifer DeStefano received an anonymous call one January afternoon while her 15-year-old daughter was out of town for a ski race. DeStefano heard her daughter answer the phone, panicking and screaming, quickly followed by a man's voice threatening to drug and kidnap DeStefano's daughter unless he was sent $1 million, CNN reported. DeStefano was able to reach her daughter a few minutes later, who was fine and puzzled about what had happened, because she hadn't been abducted and wasn't involved in the ransom call.

WINNIPEG -- Canadians may soon be getting fewer scam calls. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has approved a 90-day trial of Bell's plan to use artificial intelligence to help put an end to fraudulent phone calls. According to a news release, Bell's new system uses "defined sets of call characteristics and proprietary machine learning algorithms" to identify which calls are fraudulent. It said this system could stop about 120 million scam calls every month, in addition to the 220 million fraudulent calls it shuts down using a plan implemented in 2019. Bell is the parent company of CTV News.