The world of "vishing" (voice phishing) has changed dramatically. It has moved from simple cold calls to targeted AI attacks. According to a recent report from Sumsub, deepfake fraud attempts in North America rose by 1,740% between 2022 and 2023 [1]. This sharp increase comes from the ease of access to voice cloning tools. These tools now need just three seconds of audio, often taken from social media or voicemail greetings, to create an highly accurate match of a person's voice.

These tools let scammers carry out "imposter scams" with alarming success. They bypass the usual skepticism that protects potential victims. In 2024, Americans lost nearly $3 billion to these scams, with a significant part now driven by AI-generated audio. The FTC states that these sophisticated attacks often target older adults by pretending to be distressed grandchildren [2]. However, they are increasingly used against business professionals to authorize fraudulent wire transfers.

The telco industry now faces a serious challenge as these calls move through regular networks without detection. Unlike traditional spam, which can be caught by volume or known blacklists, AI voice clones often come from spoofed numbers. They also have unique audio signatures that avoid older filters. This gap has created a trust deficit in voice communication. The caller ID can no longer be trusted as a reliable way to verify identity.

For telco providers, the solution lies in analyzing the signal itself: examining the audio integrity becomes essential. As these attacks increase implementing real-time detection at the network level is the only effective way to restore trust in voice communications.