Artificial intelligence is consistently ranked as the leading technology trend today. To some, its wonders represent a remarkable example of human ingenuity that will fuel business productivity, efficiency, and revenue into the future.
To others, it signifies a worrying development that could cause lasting harm to the global commerce ecosystem.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI as it’s more commonly referred to, reflects a whole new frontier that is projected to revolutionize the world, transforming diverse industries such as: manufacturing, healthcare, construction, automotive, transportation, retail, finance, logistics, ecommerce, and education.
One industry where AI may be having the most immediate impact today is in the technology field. Artificial intelligence in IT is a prime example of its duality.
Its machine learning capabilities are being adopted to strengthen cybersecurity tools in defending against persistent threats.
At the same time, hackers are using AI-powered tools to deploy increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks that are becoming harder to detect.
In this article, we’ll discuss the rising use of AI to carry out stealthy cyberattacks. We’ll also outline six ways you can harness AI as a powerful weapon to combat new and emerging cyber threats.
With this information, you’ll understand some of the AI-assisted cyberattack methods increasingly being used by threat actors, and you’ll learn how you can use AI against the attackers to protect your business.
What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
AI is meant to simulate actual human intelligence. In a nutshell, humans are training computers on how to understand, reason, and problem-solve like real people.
The technology harnesses machine learning using complex algorithms to categorize and analyze vast amounts of data to make predictions, offer recommendations, or complete tasks.
According to a newly released report by Polaris Market Research, global AI in the cybersecurity market is expected to rocket from an estimated $31.4 billion in 2025 to $219 billion by 2034.
The report says this trend is fueled in large part by the rapidly growing number of cyber threats as more businesses implement AI-driven cybersecurity controls to defend against the rising number of cyber incidents.
In one study, 70 percent of surveyed U.S. cybersecurity professionals acknowledged the benefits of AI in boosting employee productivity and collaboration.
Sixty-three percent of respondents said the technology has also lifted employee morale.
The findings were part of a study published in Deep Instinct's report, “Generative AI and Cybersecurity: Bright Future or Business Battleground?,” as reported in Security magazine.
For this Voice of SecOps 4th Edition 2023 report, Sapio Research surveyed more than 650 senior security operations professionals in the U.S., including chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief information officers (CIOs).
Despite the benefits of AI, the report also found significant disadvantages of AI in cybersecurity.
Seventy-five percent of the surveyed security professionals saw an increase in cybersecurity incidents, with 85 percent of them pointing to attackers using generative AI as the cause.
Risks Of AI For Businesses
Thanks to AI, hackers are finding new ways to circumvent traditional security guardrails businesses have put in place to keep them out.
Here are three examples of AI-powered cyberattacks:
1. Deepfakes
Attackers are using generative AI to create AI-generated images, video, and audio recordings impersonating executives and other leaders within an organization. These deepfakes look so convincing that even some cybersecurity experts have been fooled.
Related Article: Deepfakes And AI Scams: How To Spot Them And Protect Your Business
Deepfakes are often used to build trust with the victims.
By erasing their doubts, attacks understand that the individuals are more likely to go through with a request to send money, share sensitive business information, or take some other adverse action.
2. Phishing & social engineering attacks
These types of attacks go by many different names such as phishing, smishing, vishing, whaling (business email compromise), and quid pro quo. They’re carried out in various ways.
Cybercriminals often take weeks, even months, to study potential targets. They use AI to monitor the social media activity of their targets and mine other public information readily available online.
Once they’ve collected enough background information on a person, they’ll strike.
Often, attackers will begin such cyber incidents by sending an unsolicited email, text message, or voicemail pretending to be an executive within an organization or a known vendor or partner contact, for instance.
In the message, the attacker will reference something the target shared online, such as a job promotion or a recent trip, hoping to personalize the message to draw in the victim.
The back and forth communication can continue for some time. Eventually, once the attacker is convinced they’ve developed strong trust bond, they’ll ask the victim to transfer money.
Attackers can use AI to send out email or text messages containing a malicious link. Once the link is clicked or the infected file is downloaded, this opens the door to allow the bad actor to launch a broader attack, such as malware, ransomware, or a data breach.
3. Token Theft
Tokens are digital keys that allow users to get secure access to your digital resources without needing to constantly re-enter login information.
In an alarming trend, threat actors have figured out a work-around to multi-factor authentication (MFA) tools to gain unauthorized access through authentication token theft.
This type of cyberattack, which generally starts with some type of deceptive phishing campaign like adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM), bypasses common MFA controls.
Related Article: How Token Theft Bypasses MFA & How Conditional Access Can Reduce Risk
Token theft allows attackers to hijack user logins by stealing their stored authentication tokens without the individual even being aware that they’ve been hacked.
By gaining access with the stolen authentication tokens, threat actors can impersonate the victims and secretly send out messages to many of the victim’s business contacts to keep the attack going.
Advantages of Using AI to Mitigate Cyber Threats
With these and other cybercrimes, threat actors are using AI and machine learning to trick users into taking some negative action that can lead to compromised data, financial loss, regulatory compliance issues, reputational harm, legal complications, and other damage.
So, what can businesses do to defend against AI threats? Businesses can use artificial intelligence to fight power with power.
Just as malicious actors are using AI to launch sophisticated attacks that are becoming virtually undetectable, businesses can leverage AI to strengthen their environment.
Related Article: Why Are Businesses Moving To Zero Trust? Your Roadmap To A ZT Strategy
AI is being used to provide more robust protections against an ever-changing threat landscape. For instance, AI-powered tools have become increasingly commonplace in antivirus, anti-malware, spam filtering, and anti-phishing software.
Here are 6 other examples of AI in cybersecurity:
1. Network security
- Uses AI and machine learning to analyze and understand a company’s normal traffic patterns
- Able to quickly detect abnormalities and send alerts
2. Automated updates and patches
- Allows an organization’s IT team to schedule software updates and critical security patches
- Ensures infrastructure is up-to-date to protect the ongoing health and security of an organization’s devices, data, and systems
3. Incident response
- Creates the rules to automatically quarantine any suspected threats to prevent further intrusion into your network
- Sends out an automatic alert to key internal team members or an external managed IT service provider (MSP)
4. Password protection
- AI can be used to create strong, unique passwords that offer more protections than easily guessable or default passwords
- AI can assess the strength of existing passwords, and even tell whether they’ve been detected in a data breach
5. Penetration testing and vulnerability scanning
- These AI-driven software solutions can be used to identify patterns, predict threats, assess system configuration, identify open ports, or spot other potential cybersecurity gaps
- These tools can offer remediation guidance to close identified vulnerabilities and enhance network performance and security
Related Article: 8 Hidden Cyber Risks That Might Be Lurking Within Your IT Environment
6. Access controls
- AI can be used in identity verification and authentication tools to restrict access to only authorized users based on their roles and job functions.
- This can help protect against threat actors being able to get unauthorized access to your valuable data to use for financial gain.
The Bottom Line On AI In Technology
Regardless of the method of attack, the purpose is still the same: to exploit a weakness within your environment or capitalize on human error to gain a foothold into your network.
Once inside, bad actors can secretly study your files, proprietary business information, financial records, internal and external communications, management recordings and screenshots, and other valuable data.
They can then use their access and the information they’ve compiled to launch a broader campaign, such as a ransomware attack.
After reading this article, you now know some of the ways attackers are using AI to sneak into your systems to launch an attack. You also understand how you can harness the power of AI to beat cybercriminals at their own game to protect your business.
Do you know how secure your perimeter is? What is the overall health of your devices, software, and systems? Are you dealing with system misconfigurations, network congestion, data storage problems, repeated downtime, or other IT challenges?
If so, and you don’t already have an in-house IT department, you may be considering turning to a managed IT service provider (MSP).
Related Article: Why Are More Small And Medium-Sized Businesses Using Managed IT?
With managed IT, you instantly gain an entire team of IT professionals with specialized skills and broad industry knowledge to implement the IT and advanced cybersecurity solutions you need to close your security gaps and help propel your business.
If you are in the market for a new managed IT provider, as always, we encourage you to do your due diligence in researching several options.
This will help ensure you choose a provider with the capabilities to solve your IT challenges and help you reach your business goals.
If you’re unsure of your current security posture, click the button below to schedule a brief call with one of our IT experts so we can learn more about your business and see how we can help solve your cybersecurity concerns.
