COMMENTARY. As cybersecurity experts predicted a year ago, artificial intelligence has been a central player on the 2023 cybercrime landscape, driving an increase of attacks while also contributing to improvements in the defense against future attacks.
Now, heading into 2024, experts across the industry expect AI to exert even more influence in cybersecurity.
The Google Cloud Cybersecurity Forecast 2024 sees generative AI and large language models contributing to an increase in various forms of cyberattacks.
More than 90% of Canadian CEOs in a KPMG poll think generative AI will make them more vulnerable to breaches.
A UK government report says AI poses a threat to the country's next election.
While AI-related threats are still in their early stages, the volume and sophistication of AI-driven attacks are increasing every day.
Organizations need to prepare themselves for what's ahead. 4 Ways Cybercriminals Are Leveraging AI There are four main ways adversaries are using commonly available AI tools like ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Midjourney: automated phishing attacks, impersonation attacks, social engineering attacks, and fake customer support chatbots.
Spear-phishing attacks are getting a major boost from AI. In the past, it was easier to identify phishing attempts solely because many were riddled with poor grammar and spelling errors.
Just like with phishing attacks, they use chatbots to send voice messages pretending to be a trusted friend, colleague, or family member in an attempt to get information or access to an account.
Cybercriminals are using ChatGPT and other AI chatbots to carry out social engineering attacks that foment chaos.
A fraudulent bank site could be created using a customer service chatbot that appears human.
How Cybersecurity Is Fighting Back The good news is that AI is also being used as a security tool to combat AI-driven scams.
Using these technologies, GANs can generate new attack patterns that resemble previously seen attack patterns.
By training a model on these patterns, systems can make predictions about the kind of attacks we can expect to see and the ways cybercriminals are exploiting those threats.
When someone logs into an account from a different location than usual or if the accounting department is mysteriously using a PowerShell system normally used by software developers, that could be an indicator of an attack.
While cybersecurity systems have long used this model, the added technological horsepower AI models possess can more effectively flag messages that are potentially suspicious.
Detection Response Using AI systems, cybersecurity tools and services like managed detection and response can better detect threats and communicate information about them to security teams.
AI helps security teams more rapidly identify and address legitimate threats by receiving information that is succinct and relevant.
Conclusion AI tools are opening society's eyes to new possibilities in virtually every field of work.
As hackers take fuller advantage of large language model technologies, the industry will need to keep pace to keep the AI threat under control.
This Cyber News was published on www.darkreading.com. Publication date: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:00:46 +0000