Artificial Intelligence: A Powerful Tool and A Growing Threat for Cybercriminals

Artificial Intelligence (AI), or knowledge-holding machines and software, as opposed to the intelligence of humans and animals, has become one of the most valuable tools in the tech, government, science, and entertainment industries.

Artificial Intelligence took off in 2023 and has provided people with personalized recommendations based on their previous searches, purchases, or other online behavior. AI has provided great hope for many industry professionals looking to increase their organization’s productivity and work capacity. 

It is crucial to note that the emergence of AI has permitted the growth of various cyber and email security threats, and malicious hackers have found ways to use AI for successful email security breaches on any vulnerable organization. This trend is costing businesses millions of dollars, with the average total cost of a data breach in 2023 being $4.45 million, a 15.3% jump from 2020, according to IBM. Fortunately, businesses are turning to AI more frequently to defeat cybercriminals. As hackers find creative ways to take down organizations, businesses must find ways to use AI as a cyber security tool.

With the increase in data breach impacting organizations, it is clear that businesses must take a proactive approach to protecting their critical assets and clients. Luckily, AI holds significant promise in the realm of cybersecurity. Let's examine how AI impacts business security and how it can be used to defeat cybercriminals before they can attack a system.

How Are Cybercriminals Using AI?

Malicious hackers frequently use these methods to bypass companies' networks:

• AI-enabled phishing email attacks have become increasingly sophisticated. By leveraging Machine Learning algorithms, attackers can analyze vast amounts of data to craft personalized and convincing messages that bypass traditional email security measures.
• Creating “deepfake data,” a term for videos and presentations enhanced by AI and other modern technology to present falsified results, has become popular among hackers.
• Cybercriminals are building better malware with ChatGPT, which uses AI technology and can crack even strong passwords. 
• AI-supported password-guessing and CAPTCHA-cracking is a completely automated technique that tells computers and humans apart.
• Human impersonation on social networking platforms refers to creating an account using a person or organization's name, image, or other identifying elements to commit fraud. The cybercriminal may even steal your details and hack into your account.
• Weaponizing AI frameworks for hacking vulnerable hosts involves leveraging malicious AI algorithms that can degrade the performance and disrupt the normal functions of benign AI algorithms while providing technological edge attack scenarios in both cyber and physical spaces.

How Can Businesses Leverage AI for Future-Proof Security?

Companies seek new ways to keep their users, assets, and brand image safe. AI holds significant promise in the realm of security, as AI presents recent advances and use cases that can offer better and more accurate information to help enhance communications, automate routine tasks, and provide detailed insights into logistical operations. These capabilities can improve performance, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce costs for firms. AI will benefit businesses in 2024 and beyond in the following ways:

• AI Identifies Unknown Security Threats: The proper use of AI can detect unknown email threats to a company. Unknown threats can cause massive damage to the network, so using modern solutions like AI to prevent attacks is essential.
• AI Offers Better Vulnerability Management: Vulnerability management is essential in securing an organization’s network. AI can help assess a system’s cyber security and identify email security issues before adversaries exploit them.
• AI Accelerates Detection & Response Times: AI helps businesses detect untrusted data from the beginning, protecting against potentially irreversible damage to a network. AI finishes such tasks more efficiently than humans, making it incredibly useful for cyber threat protection.
• AI Provides Better Security & Prioritizes Cyberattacks: The threats businesses face keep changing as hackers implement stealthy new tactics daily. Thus, it has become challenging for businesses to prioritize security tasks. AI can help businesses with cyber threat protection and detection so companies can focus on other priorities.

How Can AI Be Used to Stop Hackers Before They Breach?

AI can handle copious amounts of data within an organization. Businesses have many activities to perform on a network, meaning that a large amount of data is transferred between customers and businesses daily. With AI-based cybersecurity solutions, one can easily detect cyber and email threats masked as a regular activity. Its automated nature allows it to skim through massive chunks of traffic and data. Keeping an organization’s network and data secure isn’t easy today,  but businesses can take a decisive step towards better security by implementing AI to strengthen their cybersecurity platforms. Mercedes-Benz and ADP are examples of organizations stepping up to defend against email security breaches utilizing AI. These companies have said they already see Machine Learning, a subset of AI, offering some real value in fraud detection, incident analysis, and vulnerability analysis.

Keep Learning About Preventing Hacks & Breaches with AI

Many questions exist in AI and cybersecurity, and organizations must decide the stance they wish to take on AI. One of the biggest threats that makes security more challenging is negligence and human error. AI cybersecurity solutions can help address this threat by detecting phishing email attacks before they reach the inbox and assisting businesses in prioritizing and preventing email threats.

• Learn more about an effective cloud email security software solution that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), and Machine Learning (ML) to detect and block threats in real-time.
• Prepare your business for cyberattacks to make sure employees stay safe online.
• Following best practices for email security can improve your email security posture to protect against various attacks and breaches.
• Get the latest updates on how to stay safe online.