Election Day scams, deepfakes, hacking: 7 On Your Side

Election Day scam tracker

Scammers and other bad actors have been busy this campaign season trying to take advantage of voters, and even candidates

AUSTIN, Texas - Scammers and other bad actors have been busy this campaign season, trying to take advantage of voters and candidates.

FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak takes a look at the 7 On Your Side scam tracker.

First up, we're talking about political text messages that may be coming from scammers.

Many have gotten nonstop texts this election season appearing to be from presidential contenders or from candidates here in Texas. The texts often ask for donations or to complete a poll or survey by clicking on a link.

How to protect yourself from political scams

With just three weeks until election day, many of us are being bombarded by phone, text and email with surveys or appeals for donations. While some of them are legitimate, plenty of them are scams, and experts urge you to proceed with caution.

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While some could be legit, the Better Business Bureau says a lot of them are scams.

In addition to your money, phishing texts or calls could try to steal your password, your account or credit card number, your social security number, or other personal information.

Experts say your best bet is not to provide any info in response to unsolicited texts.

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Perhaps not surprisingly, artificial intelligence played a big role in election-related scams this time around.

It's now easy to make so-called "deepfake" imitations of political candidates or celebrities purportedly endorsing them. Deepfakes are computer-generated images, video or audio that sound or look like someone, but they’re not real.

Experts say they could interfere with elections and even influence voters. It's always a good idea to do some fact-checking, and you can even run the video link through deepfake detections tools online.

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And finally, tech companies say Iranian hackers have been trying to access personal email accounts linked to the presidential election.

Google says about a dozen staffers of President Biden, former President Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris were targeted. Microsoft made a similar warning and the Trump campaign claimed hackers actually stole sensitive documents.

And just last week the New York Times reported China is under investigation for trying to hack into the phones of Trump, his running mate JD Vance and Harris-Walz campaign staffers.