1. AI is a key player in the fight against cybercrime
AI offers significant benefits due to its ability to process vast amounts of data, identify patterns and detect signs of an attempted attack. It’s also a useful tool for detecting malicious activity in a system or network, and spotting anomalies or suspicious behaviors.
In addition, AI automates many manual and laborious cybersecurity tasks, freeing up time and resources for cybersecurity teams to focus on other key aspects of their work.
But while the cybersecurity industry is focused on how to use AI to stop bad actors, cybercriminals often use AI itself to increase the speed, scale and intensity of their attacks.
For example, phishing emails have evolved from simple deceptive emails to ones that have become more advanced, harder to spot and significantly more dangerous. Attackers are also successful at using deepfakes—a form of AI that can be used to create convincing hoax images, sounds and videos—to perpetrate fraud or manipulate an audience into action.
And AI's adaptive nature is one of its most potent features in social engineering attacks, which manipulate people into giving away sensitive information or compromising security.
By using AI in these attacks, cybercriminals can appear more credible and trustworthy, leading more victims to fall for fraud attempts or manipulation, which could lead to system compromise.