Imagine getting an email that looks exactly like it came from your boss, flawless grammar, convincing content, and the request looks legitimate. Except it was written entirely by AI. This is the reality for many people because artificial intelligence is so much more than just chatbots. Today, AI is being used to automate almost every step in cybercriminals operations, from gathering OSINT on potential targets to writing malware, generating phishing campaigns, and even creating deepfakes of employees. As AI evolves these types of attacks will become more sophisticated and increasingly difficult to identify, organizations will have to constantly adapt in order to defend against what was made to be a tool.
How Organizations Can Defend Against AI Threats
While AI is making cyberattacks more sophisticated, that doesn't leave organizations defenseless. Combining strong security practices, employee training, and even some AI assisted programs can all be used to reduce the risk of AI powered attacks. Although there are many different systems you could implement, your first line of defense should be proper employee training. Your employees are one of the most common targets for cyberattacks because they do physicals interactions with emails, messages, and handle different requests every single day. Spoofed emails and deepfake voice calls are designed specifically to exploit a humans trust rather than technical vulnerabilities, a prime example occurred in 2020, when a small group of hackers posed as IT support over the phone and convinced X (then twitter) employees to reset account credentials ultimately gaining access to all of twitters administrative tools in order to run a bitcoin scam. (DOJ's official charging) That brings up the question, What does good employee training look like? Well you must first make sure everyone is able to recognize common signs of phishing. Organizations should also establish procedures to verify that the "employee" that you are speaking with on the phone is truly an employee and not a bad actor, whether that is employee IDs or MFA codes to employee's cell is entirely preference, but there must be something. You must also make sure that there is a very simple process for reporting suspicious activity and that all reports are followed up on. Nobody is perfect, and even the most well-trained employee can make mistakes. Security should never rely on a single layer of protection. If an attacker is able to gain an employees credentials additional measures such as multi factor authentication and properly configured account policies can prevent a single compromised account from becoming a full scale meltdown.
AI is changing cybercrime everyday, but awareness and preparation are still the best defenses.
The Future of AI in Cybersecurity
Artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity for both sides, Attackers are using AI to automate many steps including phishing campaigns, finding vulnerabilities, and elaborate social engineering attacks, meanwhile defenders are using that same technology to detect these threats faster, analyze massive amounts of data, and respond to attacks in real time. As this technology continues to grow, these organizations cannot rely only on technology to stay protected. Security now requires well defined policies, extensive employee training, to recognize, and respond to attacks, alongside AI powered defense tools. AI will not entirely replace cybersecurity professionals, it is just changing the tools they use and making the importance of strong security more well known. When an organization is continuously adapting to this changing technology by investing in employee awareness, strong security teams, and embracing defensive AI they will be in the best position to face the new generation of cyberattacks.
AI isn't replacing cybersecurity, it's changing the battlefield.