The New State of Cybersecurity
The pervasiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) is having a significant impact on almost every industry, including cybersecurity and cybercrime.
Cybercriminals can use AI to enhance their ability to penetrate secure networks and cause financial and reputational harm to small businesses.
As a small business owner, understanding the potential issues and how to protect your company could prevent some serious issues from ever occurring.
How Cybercriminals Are Using AI to Help Them Perform Attacks
There are two main ways cybercriminals are using AI. The first is to make the old cyberattacks they have performed for years more sophisticated. The second is using tricks that were not available to them in the past. Here is a basic rundown of these two categories.
How AI Makes Known Cyberattacks More Sophisticated
You may be familiar with cyberattacks such as phishing and a host of other forms of attacks. Some of these have been around for a while.
A closer look at how these attacks work could show how they are evolving with the advent of AI. An excellent example to use would be phishing. In this type of attack, cybercriminals send emails or other digital messages with enticing offers or pretend to be a familiar person or organization.
They then either request information from the recipient or ask them to click on a link directing them to a website that collects information the recipient enters, such as a user ID and password or personally identifiable information. Sometimes, simply clicking on the link allows the cybercriminal to download malware, which tracks the user’s online activity. In all cases, the cybercriminal’s goal is to steal the user’s credentials.
How It Worked in the Past
In the past, these emails or messages were unprofessional, with poor grammar and sketchy graphics. Many people were able to tell that something was up before it was too late. The selection process of who should receive these messages was also somewhat random.
How It Works With AI-Assistance
With the help of AI, it is becoming increasingly difficult to detect fraud. Cybercriminals can create messages with graphics and images that look exactly like those of companies and institutions people are familiar with. AI also helps bad actors by mimicking how other people and organizations write.
If a cybercriminal wants to copy an organization’s writing style and tone, they can submit a sample of their content, and the AI software will create a message that is identical — or close enough — to the original. When someone gets a fraudulent email from a credit card company, a bank or a government organization, the logos, language, signatures and everything else about the email might be realistic enough to fool them even if they’re looking out for fraud.
This increases the chances of them unintentionally downloading malware or divulging private information. AI-based algorithms also help criminals optimize who they target with their fraud. It can scan vast amounts of webpages, from social media to company websites, to learn how to attempt to extract information from an individual. Cybercriminals can then use this information to send messages that look like they’re coming from friends or colleagues, making it much easier to bait them into following a scammer’s instructions.
How AI Is Creating New Categories of Cyberattacks
New attacks are also beginning to emerge. Now that people can easily create and edit images, videos, and voices using AI, criminals can send videos or voice messages that sound as if they’re from a known colleague. These are called deepfake attacks.
This new method opens up a whole new world to cybercriminals. They can leave instructions to unsuspecting victims, who will comply with what they think is coming from a colleague or a superior.
How Cybersecurity Professionals Are Using AI to Thwart Cybercriminals
Knowing that cybercriminals are hard at work using AI to enhance their attacks on unsuspecting individuals, cybersecurity professionals are constantly developing countermeasures. Many of their defenses involve AI as well. AI-based software can flag images, videos, and audio files that are altered with AI and prevent deepfake attacks.
AI-powered analytics prevent attacks by monitoring the network for irregular activities, identifying vulnerabilities, and predicting the possibility of a future threat. AI-based algorithms can also monitor how attacks are developing to determine how to protect a company’s network for the future. In the event of an attack, AI software can act as a first line of defense to reverse or mitigate the damage to the network.
Protect Your Company Against the Fallout of AI-Assisted Cyberattacks With Cyber Insurance
Hiring an IT professional to check your network and ensure you have the proper protection in place is a good first step. It is strongly recommended to consider cyber insurance for your small business. Give us a call.
Dan Zeiler
dan@zeiler.com
877-597-5900 x134