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Hackers have reportedly scammed over $5billion from music fans this year by posing as Taylor Swift<\/a>,\u00a0Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>\u00a0and others.<\/p>\n A report from the social media security company Spikerz has estimated that an eye-watering $5.3billion (\u00a34billion) has been accrued by AI impersonations of high-profile artists on platforms such as X, TikTok and Instagram in 2025 alone (via Billboard<\/i><\/a>).<\/p>\n Social media sites have become increasingly \u201chigh-risk entry points for fraud and brand damage\u201d,\u00a0the report suggests, with\u00a0scams\u00a0becoming harder to\u00a0identify\u00a0due to the rapidly accelerating technology behind AI.<\/p>\n They have\u00a0identified\u00a0Swift and Carpenter as the two most impersonated artists, with\u00a0Billie Eilish<\/a>,\u00a0BTS<\/a>,\u00a0Adele<\/a>,\u00a0Ed Sheeran<\/a>,\u00a0Lewis Capaldi<\/a>, BLACKPINK<\/a>, Ariana Grande <\/a>and Drake <\/a>rounding out the top 10.<\/p>\n Spikerz\u00a0consultant Scott Cohen has said: \u201cSocial platforms have become the most important connection point between artists and their audiences, and therefore, the most vulnerable. If we want artists to innovate and experiment, we\u00a0have to\u00a0give them digital environments where\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not constantly under attack.\u201d<\/p>\n The report\u00a0stated:\u00a0\u201cWhen fans are duped by a fake account into buying non-existent merch, tickets, or experiences, the artist not only loses revenue, but suffers a blow to reputation that undermines future sales and engagement.\u00a0The resulting brand damage can reduce the value of sponsorships, collaborations, and label partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The threat of scammers has been on the rise in recent years, with\u00a0Arctic Monkeys being targeted last year<\/a>\u00a0when someone posed as the band\u2019s agent and appeared to be booking artists for a fake 2025 world tour.<\/p>\n Oasis fans also fell victim to ticket scams<\/a>\u00a0when\u00a0the 2025 reunion tour tickets went on sale last year, with\u00a0victims\u00a0losing\u00a0\u00a3346 on average.\u00a0A Lloyds Bank report suggested that 90 per cent of Oasis ticket\u00a0scams\u00a0started with fake adverts on social\u00a0media\u00a0and those between 35 and 44 were the most likely to be targeted.<\/p>\n Also last year,\u00a0Sophie Ellis-Bextor warned her fans about an AI\u00a0scam<\/a>\u00a0that featured \u2018Murder\u00a0On\u00a0The\u00a0Dancefloor\u2019 to create a fake social media advert.<\/p>\n Facebook\u00a0were\u00a0also accused of \u201cdoing nothing\u201d<\/a>\u00a0about a\u00a0scam\u00a0around tickets for Taylor Swift\u2019s Eras Tour last summer.<\/p>\n The post Hackers reportedly stole $5.3billion from fans in 2025 by impersonating Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish and more<\/a> appeared first on NME<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hackers have reportedly scammed over $5billion from music fans this year by posing as Taylor Swift,\u00a0Sabrina Carpenter\u00a0and others. A report from the social media security company Spikerz has estimated that an eye-watering $5.3billion (\u00a34billion) has been accrued by AI impersonations of high-profile artists on platforms such as X, TikTok and Instagram in 2025 alone (via […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 21:34:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}