Anyone who’s even remotely invested in the world of tech knows that AI applications like ChatGPT are all the rage. These applications can best be seen as tools, with the potential to help all of us work more efficiently and more productively. It’s true for coders, copywriters, and countless other professions besides. Unfortunately, it’s also true for hackers and other virtual criminals, who can leverage AI to break into secured networks and compromise critical data assets more speedily than ever before.
As such, it’s imperative for cybersecurity teams to understand the role of AI in aiding and abetting hacker attacks. Here’s a quick overview.
How Common are AI-Fueled Cyberattacks?
First and foremost, it’s important to note that AI has been used in cyberattacks for several years. What’s changed is the frequency and intensity of AI-fueled attacks. As generative AI programs like ChatGPT become more advanced and more accessible, they’re providing hackers with an increasingly dangerous set of tools.
Here’s just one data point to consider: In a recent survey of cybersecurity professionals, about 75 percent of respondents felt confident that AI-fueled cyberattacks were on the rise. And about one in six said they’d personally dealt with a cyberattack that leveraged AI.
How Hackers Use AI
So how exactly do hackers use AI for wrongful purposes?
Sadly, there are all too many applications for AI in the world of cybercrime, including the generation of phishing emails, malicious code, malware, and ransomware.
The phishing application may be especially noteworthy. Predictive text tools like ChatGPT make it all too easy for hackers to generate emails that are targeted and personalized, and that feel persuasive in imitating the language of an actual friend or colleague. In other words, AI provides hackers with sophisticated means to generate scams that convince you of their legitimacy.
Additionally, AI is often put to work finding and exploiting code vulnerabilities. AI programs can very quickly analyze a piece of code, locate weak spots, then generate new code to exploit those weak spots. This kind of activity might take forever for an actual hacker who is working manually, but for AI, it may take mere seconds.
How AI Can Be Used for Good
To return to our original premise, though, AI is a tool, and if it makes life easier for hackers, it can also make life easier for IT teams and cybersecurity professionals. Indeed, the silver lining to all of this is that defensive AI applications are rising at the same rate as malicious AI.
Simply put, the right application of AI can provide cybersecurity teams with a faster and easier way to identify and address data breaches. Using AI helps cybersecurity teams work more expediently and accomplish greater results with more limited resources. So while AI has exacerbated many of the biggest cybersecurity problems, it has also provided some important solutions.
Defensive Solutions for Your Small Business
At BlueArmor, we encourage all business owners to be aware of the growing threat of AI-fueled cyberattacks, but also to rest assured that a trusted cybersecurity vendor can offer robust protection. To find out more about defensive AI and other solutions, contact the BlueArmor team in Charlotte, NC.