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7 Ways AI Can Be Used by Hackers to Steal Personal Information

Steal Personal Information
Anti-virus, Data Backup, Malware, Security, , , ,

Data breaches are now more rampant than ever to steal personal information. Each month sees at least 150 incidents that affect businesses, and these only account for the reported cases. One reason hackers can execute data breaches so easily is because of modern technology, like artificial intelligence. While AI can help society at large, it has also been instrumental in illicit activities like stealing personal information. Here are 7 ways by which hackers are using AI to infiltrate businesses.

Personalized Phishing To Steal Personal Information

Phishing is one of the most prevalent methods of hacking used today. This is because phishing relies on the human element, which is the weakest link of security in any organization, making for a high success rate. But with AI, phishing has become a huge threat to businesses and individuals. Messages are now personalized, so employees are more likely to believe they are real. Once the victim takes the phishing bait, the hackers can steal all kinds of information from the system.

Spreading Deepfakes to Steal Personal Information

Deepfakes are AI-generated videos or sound clips that look very real. There are so many ways that hackers can use these kinds of videos to steal information. They can directly target employees by sending a deepfake video, supposedly from a supervisor. The “supervisor” might ask for some information, and the employee obliges because it’s from their boss. Hackers can also use deepfake material to spread negative propaganda about a company. In the impending chaos, they can take advantage of compromised security by diving in and successfully executing a data breach.

Cracking CAPTCHA

Until recently, CAPTCHA was a reliable means of differentiating a real person from a bot. But AI has now improved so much that it can accurately emulate human images and behavior. In a typical CAPTCHA image, someone could ask you to click on all the boxes with a bridge. The old system presumes that only a human will do this correctly. But AI algorithms can now quickly analyze the image and respond just like a human would. Once the hacker gets past the CAPTCHA security gates using this strategy, they can steal whatever sensitive personal information they want.

Using Brute Force

Traditionally, the most common way to crack passwords was by trying all combinations until you got the right one. This hack is known as brute-forcing. Hackers still use the same method today. However, with the help of AI tools, specifically those that analyze a user’s online behavior, the process requires considerably less time and computing power.

Listening to Keystrokes

Several AI tools can “listen” to keystrokes. Instead of trying all the different combinations like in the brute force method, AI can listen to the keystrokes and identify a user’s password with up to 95% accuracy. There will be considerable training involved, as with most AI algorithms, but once the machine learning process is complete, hackers can effectively use this tool to easily crack passwords.

Audio Fingerprinting to Steal Personal Information

Voice biometrics is one of the most common security measures used today. It is highly secure since voiceprints are unique, just like fingerprints. But thanks to AI, duplicating voice prints is now easy. Many call the process audio fingerprinting. All that’s required is a few minutes of a sample of the target’s voice, and AI will quickly be able to generate audio clips in that exact voice.

AI-Aided Social Engineering

Social engineering refers to the deception or manipulation of people to entice them into revealing confidential information or granting access to restricted areas. It is not a hacking method per se but more of a practice of misleading people by taking advantage of trust or other vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals have been practicing social engineering for a long time, but with AI tools and algorithms, the technique has become much more efficient and has led to successful hacking.

Final Thoughts on AI Being Used to Steal Personal Information

This list is just the tip of the iceberg for AI to steal personal information. There are many other ways that hackers can use AI to steal information. For sure, they will also discover dozens of newer and more dangerous methods shortly. But businesses don’t have to sit back and take it all lightly. There are solutions to combat AI hacking, and many of these solutions involve AI as well.

Our company is dedicated to using technology for the improvement of businesses, and this includes the area of security. If you want to fortify your defenses against AI-powered attempts to steal your information, we can hook you up with the right service provider that can take care of your needs. You can also learn a lot from our on-demand webinar and cybersecurity e-book, so download them today. Let us know your interest so we can send you more information.

How Is AI Used Against Your Employees

AI against Employees
Cybersecurity, Data Backup, Security, , , ,

Artificial intelligence has evolved dramatically, and the improvements are evident. In one of its first applications, AI was used to develop a checkers program. It was a monumental achievement at the time but seems so simplistic compared to today’s AI applications. AI is an everyday tool behind many ordinary things like virtual assistants, autonomous vehicles, and chatbots. Because of this AI is now used against your employees if they are not aware.

The Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has become so advanced that it is often difficult to fathom whether something is real or AI-generated. When you attempt to distinguish between real photos taken by your friend and those produced by an AI photo app, it can be quite amusing. However, this could turn dangerous, especially when hackers use it to target employees. The goal is to infiltrate a company’s system or steal confidential data. And what’s alarming is that there are several ways that this can be done.

Using AI Chatbots for Phishing Campaigns Against Employees

There used to be a time when phishing emails were easily distinguishable because of their glaring grammatical errors or misplaced punctuation marks. But with AI-powered chatbots, hackers can now generate almost flawlessly written phishing emails. Not only that, but these messages can also be personalized, making it more likely for the recipient to fall victim, as they won’t suspect that the email is fake.

CEO Fraud and Executive Phishing

This is not an entirely new method of social engineering. However, it has had a much higher success rate since generative AI tools emerged, making the phishing campaign more effective. In this type of phishing attack, hackers send out emails that look like they came from the CEO or some other high-ranking official. Most employees will not question this type of authority, especially since the message looks authentic, complete with logos and signatures.

Using AI Deepfake to Create Deceptive Videos Against Employees

Many people are aware by now that emails can easily be faked. With the prevalence of phishing scams and similar cyberattacks, we now tend to be more vigilant when reading through our inboxes. But videos are a different thing. As the saying goes, to see is to believe. If there is a video, it must be real. There is no need to verify because it is in front of your eyes, so they would willingly volunteer sensitive information, grant unauthorized access, or whatnot. However many employees don’t realize that AI is so advanced that even these videos can now be fabricated using Deepfake technology.

What You Can Do To Keep Your Employees and Your Business Safe

Hackers are taking advantage of AI technology to execute their attacks. We can only expect these strategies to become even more aggressive as AI continues to advance. But at the same time, there are steps you can take to increase safety for your business and your employees.

AI Cybersecurity Training for Employees

Awareness is key to mitigating the risks brought by AI-based attacks. With regular cybersecurity training, you can maintain employee awareness, help them understand how AI attacks work, and equip them with the knowledge to pinpoint red flags in suspicious emails.

Limit Access to Sensitive Information

Employees should always be on a need-to-know basis with the company’s sensitive information to minimize the damage in the event of a data breach. The less they know, the less the cybercriminals can get out of them.

Use AI-Powered Security Solutions

When it comes to AI, two can play the game. Cybercriminals may use AI to penetrate your system, but you can also use AI to detect such threats from a mile away. The important thing is to stay a couple of steps ahead of the enemy by ensuring that experts equip your security system with the most advanced AI tools to protect your organization and your employees.

Partner with an AI Security Expert

There is a plethora of AI tools widely available to anyone, and many of these are even free. But if you want to have the most secure system possible, we strongly recommend that you seek the help of experts in AI technologies. They can give you access to the most advanced AI tools and systems. On top of that, they can customize security strategies to align with your goals.

To learn more about what you can do, watch our on-demand webinar or download our Cybersecurity E-book.

AI technology has become so powerful that it can sometimes be scary. But with the right security solutions in place, your business and your employees can stay safe. If you are ready to take the step towards higher security and more robust protective measures, let us know. We will hook you up with an expert MSP fully capable of catering to your security needs.

Why Businesses Should Be Concerned about AI and Cyber Attacks

Ai and cyber attacks
Cybersecurity, Security, Technology, , , ,

Hacking methodologies have improved over the years. The moment a new IT program or algorithm becomes known, cybercriminals are right on it, immediately looking for ways to use these developments to their advantage. This is especially true in the realm of AI and cyber attacks.

While artificial intelligence has long been part of daily computing, recent advancements like generative AI chatbots have become a playground for hackers. Despite having robust cybersecurity strategies, many business owners may underestimate the potential threats posed by AI and cyber attacks.

A Rise in Security Risks for Businesses Because of AI

Thanks to AI tools, what used to be impossible is now very easy. Writing content, generating code, and analyzing data—an untrained employee with just a few clicks can do even so. For sure, businesses can save a lot of time, energy, and staff by using these tools. But since these same tools are also accessible to hackers, businesses will face harsh security risks because of AI and cyber attacks.

Using AI Tools to Launch Attacks on Companies

Hackers have found so many ways to use AI tools to launch cyber attacks. We have already discussed this in our previous two blogs, so we will no longer go into detail. However, some of the most notable applications cybercriminals have found for AI are for writing phishing emails that look very real, tracking keyboard inputs, analyzing online data, cracking passwords, and launching automated and simultaneous attacks.

AI has basically eliminated the need for superior programming skills to be a successful hacker. Hackers can do most of the tasks within seconds, with the right strategy and using the right AI algorithms.

So now that hackers are actively using AI as a tool to penetrate even the most foolproof systems, it is not the time for companies to sit back and relax. Instead, businesses should upgrade their cybersecurity systems, ensuring that they update them enough to protect against AI-powered security risks.

Attacking Vulnerable Businesses with AI Systems

The widespread use of AI systems by businesses, which is understandable, is another factor contributing to the increase in cyber attacks. With the benefits these systems offer, it would be unwise not to take advantage of them. But like anything in its early stages, AI systems are still new and have a few vulnerabilities. Because of this, they have become an easy and prevalent target for hackers.

Hackers have identified at least four methods for attacking a company’s AI system. Adversarial attacks are the most common, where an algorithm misleads a machine learning model by submitting an intentionally wrong input. Other methods are data poisoning and prompt injection, which can corrupt the system’s learning process.

Hackers favor backdoor attacks because they can infiltrate a target AI system for a very long time without the system’s security even noticing them. Backdoors are a bit more difficult to implement, but the rewards for hackers are tremendous.

How Businesses Can Mitigate AI and Cyber Attack Risks

Now, although AI comes with endless benefits, it also brings with it monumental security risks. It is also not a passing trend that will fade soon enough and that you can ignore. This is just the beginning. AI tools for hacking will become more destructive in the coming years. And for this reason, businesses must be concerned about these AI tools and cyber attacks.

The good news is that there are many things businesses can do to protect against security risks. If you are already using generative AI tools in your business, you must identify and contain its vulnerabilities and take steps to strengthen these areas of the system. Regular employee training is also a must, particularly about prudence in entering data into AI-powered chatbots.

It is also crucial to do data encryption when training a generative AI system for your business. Keeping data anonymous is also helpful in maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information. Of course, your choice of AI tools is also very important. There are now so many choices available, and the tendency is to go for the cheapest one. But it is always better to spend more on a reliable tool rather than risk the security of your business for a few dollars saved.

If you want to learn more about using AI systems and protecting your business from AI and cyber attacks, we can help. Just call us and we will schedule a consultation where we can discuss your business security needs and address them accordingly. Don’t forget to Download our E-book which talks about the cybersecurity role of AI in security.

How Is AI Used in Cybersecurity Especially in Hacking?

Ai Cybersecurity
Security, Technology, , , ,

Artificial intelligence has found many excellent uses in business in the past year. In particular, generative AI chatbots based on the large language model (LLM), like the currently very popular ChatGPT from OpenAI, are now being used by cybersecurity companies to respond to customer service requests, create presentations, manage meetings, write emails, and do many more tasks instead of hiring employees to do the same jobs. This, and hundreds of similar AI tools, have made work simpler, faster, and more efficient for businesses worldwide.

But hackers have also been leveraging this impressive technology for their own illicit purposes. It was not very easy at first because ChatGPT and the other popular LLMs from Google and Microsoft all come with preventive measures, making them impossible to use for cybercrime. Clever as they are, hackers eventually found a way by creating their own LLM-based AI tools, such as WormGPT.

The Birth of AI Tools Made for Hacking in Cybersecurity

Tired of attempting to circumvent security measures in mainstream LLM chatbots, cybercriminals developed their own AI-based tools. These chatbots, specifically made for hacking, were first mentioned in the Dark Web in mid-2023. Eventually, word spread, and it was quickly being promoted over Telegram. For many of these chatbots, interested users had to pay for a subscription to get access to the tool. Some are used for a one-time purchase.

Generative AI tools appealed quickly to hackers in cybersecurity because they did most of the job for them, usually much faster, more efficiently, and with better quality. Before, hackers had to have skills or undergo training to perform the different aspects of cybercrime well. But with AI taking care of these tasks, even untrained individuals can launch an online attack using these tools.

How Hackers Use AI Tools for Cybersecurity Attacks

Creating Better Phishing Campaigns

Hackers used to write phishing emails themselves. Because many of them are not native English speakers, it is usual to see glaring grammar and spelling errors in these emails. These are among the easiest red flags people use to identify fraudulent emails. But with AI tools like WormGPT, those telltale signs no longer apply for cybersecurity.

With these nefarious tools, all the hackers must do is describe what they want written, and the tool will produce it for them. The result is quite impressive because it is frequently free of errors and written with a convincing tone. It’s no wonder these scam emails have been very effective.

Gathering Data on Potential Victims 

Finding information about target victims used to be a meticulous and lengthy process. Most of the time, it had to be done manually, which is inefficient and prone to mistakes. AI technology gave hackers a means to gather relevant information without exerting much effort, if at all. They must unleash the tools with the use of AI algorithms, all the details can be collected quickly, sorted, and put to use in their hacking agenda.

Creating Malware

The original generative AI chatbots can write code. This has proved very helpful for businesses as they can create their own original simple software without hiring an entire IT team. There was a time when hackers only comprised highly skilled software experts using AI tools, even beginners could come up with formidable malware, which can cause damage in the millions of dollars.

How to Protect Against AI-Powered Cybersecurity Attacks

AI tools for hacking are still in the early stages. The peak is yet to come, so we can only expect to see more risks from these malicious tools in the future. They will become more destructive, more efficient, and more accessible to hackers.

To stay protected against these developments, businesses should enhance their defenses as early as now. Here are some ways to do just that.

  • Use an AI-based cybersecurity system to defend against AI-based cyberattacks.
  • Implement Multi-Factor Authentication for added security.
  • Conduct regular cybersecurity awareness training that includes data on AI-based online attacks.
  • Keep your network security updated.
  • Monitor developments in LLM-based activities, particularly those relevant to threat intelligence.
  • Ensure that you have a robust incident response strategy.

Artificial intelligence has been valuable to our lives in many aspects. But since hackers also use it for online crimes, businesses need to be extra vigilant. If you need help setting up a dependable security solution against AI-based attacks, we can help you. Just let us know and we can have a dependable MSP come right over to draw up a cybersecurity solution tailored for your company that can thwart any AI-based attack that comes around. Also don’t forget to Download our E-book today which talks about the cybersecurity role of AI in security.