How Advancing AI is Changing Cyber Security and Your Cyber Resilience

Threat actors are leveraging AI to craft more sophisticated and stealthy attacks. We've seen AI-created advanced malware that evades detection, deepfakes that manipulate reality, AI that generates content for scams, and more. In short, cyber attacks are becoming increasingly targeted, complex, and successful.  

This surge in AI-powered tactics means organizations need to shift how they approach cyber defense. It means that if the threat actors are using AI, so should we. Security vendors are now harnessing AI alongside other trusted techniques to outsmart threat actors. They're boosting their services with AI-powered threat detection, anomaly spotting, and behavior analysis, making their defenses faster and more robust. 

With this in mind, let's delve into the biggest cyber trends coming from AI in 2024, and what you can do to boost your cyber resilience. Let's get into it.  

AI-Powered Phishing  

In 2024, AI-driven phishing and social engineering attacks will become alarmingly sophisticated. Cybercriminals now leverage AI to craft highly personalized, convincing phishing emails at scale, making traditional detection methods obsolete in some cases. These AI algorithms analyze vast amounts of data from social media and other sources to mimic the tone, style, and content of communication from trusted sources. The result is a new breed of phishing emails that bypass standard security filters and trick even the most vigilant users into compromising their personal and organizational data. 

Moreover, AI's role in social engineering has evolved beyond simple email scams. It now orchestrates complex schemes, manipulating human behavior across multiple platforms to extract sensitive information or influence actions. These AI-crafted attacks are tailored to individual vulnerabilities, exploiting trust and exploiting human psychology with unprecedented precision. 

Lastly, attackers will continue to weaponize deepfake technology to create highly convincing audio and visual content, undermining trust in digital communications. This will facilitate intricate impersonation scams and misinformation campaigns, targeting individuals and organizations alike. Alarmingly, this has already been happening and will likely only get more frequent. For example, in 2019, a UK-based energy firm's CEO was tricked into transferring €220,000 by fraudsters who used AI to mimic the voice of the parent company's chief executive1. The AI-generated voice convincingly requested the urgent transfer of funds, citing a confidential financial transaction.  

Other AI-Driven Cyber Threats 

For many threat actors, cyber-attacks are a numbers game. They want to invest the minimum time possible to create sufficiently damaging and successful malware that they can spread far and wide. That is, a malware that will reach as many places undetected as possible, but without having to spend years refining the code. AI helps tremendously here, essentially replacing a lot of human labor.  

AI-driven malware may also become more adaptive, and capable of evading detection by altering its code in real-time based on the environment it infiltrates, effectively sidestepping static defense mechanisms. This one is particularly scary.  

And then there's AI-powered automated vulnerability discovery2. AI will enable threat actors to scan and exploit weaknesses at scale. As soon as a security flaw is made public, AI-driven tools can pinpoint and exploit vulnerabilities at an astonishing speed, far quicker than human cybersecurity teams can patch them up. This dramatically shortens the window of time from when a security issue is announced to when it's actively being used against us.  

On the offensive front, bots enhanced with AI capabilities will launch sophisticated DDoS attacks, dynamically adjusting their tactics in response to countermeasures in real time. Additionally, AI will be used to automate the aggregation and analysis of vast datasets from breaches, streamlining the process of identifying exploitable information.  

Quantum Computing 

Quantum computing is poised to become a significant trend in cybersecurity in 2024, primarily due to its potential to revolutionize encryption and data protection methods. As quantum computing advances, it introduces the ability to process information at speeds unattainable by traditional computers, enabling the development of virtually unbreakable encryption techniques.  

We've included this one here because, beyond encryption, quantum computing (once it's up and running) will dramatically change the AI landscape too. For example, quantum computers can tackle certain problems much faster than traditional computers. This opens up possibilities for AI algorithms to analyze larger datasets, train faster, and potentially discover new, groundbreaking insights. This could be a game changer in cybersecurity, offering a significant boost in cyber resilience and widening the gap between the good actors and the bad (hackers will have a long way to go catching up).  

Increased Focus on Cyber Resilience 

The surge in sophisticated cyber threats, including AI-driven attacks, ransomware, and phishing scams has highlighted just how vulnerable most organizations are. As a result, more organizations are investing in comprehensive resilience strategies that encompass not just technology but also people and processes.  

And with the cybersecurity skills gap, this often means partnering with cybersecurity vendors who have the expertise and resources to bolster your defenses. These partnerships enable organizations to access cutting-edge technologies and tap into specialized knowledge, ensuring a more robust and adaptive cybersecurity posture. In doing so, you're not only addressing current vulnerabilities but are also better positioned to anticipate and mitigate future threats.  

What Can You Do To Increase Your Cyber Resilience? 

To fortify your organization against the sophisticated cyber threats of today, a shift towards a more proactive cyber security and resilience program is essential. This means adopting a Zero Trust security model, which operates on the principle of "never trust, always verify." By implementing Zero Trust, you ensure that every access request, regardless of origin, is rigorously authenticated, authorized, and encrypted before granting access. This minimizes the attack surface and reduces the likelihood of unauthorized access. 

Proactive threat hunting is another critical component. This involves continuously searching your network for indicators of compromise that may elude traditional security measures. By actively seeking out potential threats, you can identify and mitigate risks before they escalate into full-blown attacks. This approach relies heavily on advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI to detect anomalies that signify malicious activity. 

Additionally, security awareness training tailored to your organization's needs can significantly enhance your defense against targeted phishing attacks. Educating employees about the latest phishing techniques and how to recognize them is crucial. Training should be ongoing, engaging, and test employees' understanding, ensuring they are equipped to spot and respond to phishing attempts effectively. 

Together, these strategies create a comprehensive defense mechanism against worrying advanced AIs that are in the wrong hands, enhancing your organization's cyber resilience by not just reacting to threats but actively preventing them. 

Get in touch today to see how LammTech can help.  

^[1] https://oecd.ai/en/incidents/8196

^[1] https://blog.morphisec.com/outsmarting-generative-ai-attacks