Thursday, December 12, 2024

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Is Being Used by Cybercriminals



 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that's being exploited not only by cybersecurity professionals but also by cybercriminals. Cyber adversaries are now using AI to increase the scale, sophistication, and effectiveness of their attacks. Here's how cybercriminals are using AI:


1. Automated Phishing Attacks

AI creates highly targeted phishing emails by gathering publicly available data on social media or company websites.

These emails seem more authentic, thus making the likelihood of the victims clicking on the malicious links or providing sensitive information higher.

2. Deepfake Technology

AI is utilized to create realistic audio and video deepfakes for impersonating executives or employees.

This is often utilized in business email compromise schemes or social engineering attacks for authorizing fraudulent transactions.

3. Malware Development

AI-powered malware can learn and adapt in order to evade detection by traditional security measures such as firewalls and antivirus software.

These types of malware use machine learning to bypass behavioral analysis and endpoint protections.

4. Credential Stuffing

AI accelerates brute-force attacks by automating the testing of stolen credentials across several accounts.

Machine learning increases the effectiveness of these attacks by identifying patterns in user behavior or password choices.

5. Evasion Techniques

Cybercriminals use AI to create polymorphic malware that changes its code to avoid detection.

AI can also adjust attack patterns in real-time to bypass intrusion detection systems (IDS) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions.

6. Exploitation of Security Vulnerabilities

AI systems are used to scan vast networks for vulnerabilities faster than traditional tools.

AI models identify potential exploits in software by analyzing public or leaked data about systems and configurations.

7. Botnets and DDoS Attacks

AI makes botnets more coordinated and efficient for large-scale Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Intelligent botnets can adapt to countermeasures and dynamically select the attack strategy.

8. Social Engineering at Scale

AI analyzes communication patterns and tailors social engineering attacks for specific individuals or organizations.

It helps craft realistic scenarios, making scams more believable.

9. Reconnaissance and Targeting

AI collects and analyzes data regarding potential targets by web scraping, social media mining, and dark web intelligence.

This makes for very precise targeting in spear phishing or ransomware type attacks.

10. Optimizing Ransomware

AI can optimize ransomware campaigns based on which particular targets would likely pay

AI optimizes the encryption processes, which makes it highly improbable for the data to be recovered without the key.


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