Artificial intelligence is a ‘double-edged sword’ in the world of cybersecurity: experts

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TORONTO — Denis Villeneuve has worked in cyber security for 15 years, but rarely do the threats he encounters feel as personal as they do these days.

Employees at his work, tech company Kyndryl, were sent fake videos of CEO Martin Schroeter designed to lure them into giving their login credentials to fraudsters.

Villeneuve also witnessed a friend of his who runs a small engineering company being robbed when his wife left a voicemail using a voice that sounded like her own to lie that she was in trouble and needed to bail money out immediately.

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“I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ This hits very close to home because this is my best friend,” recalls Villeneuve, cyber security and resilience center leader at Kyndryl Canada.

Attacks have been made possible by software based on artificial intelligence, which has become more affordable, accessible and advanced in recent years.

But despite the cybersecurity threats, Villeneuve – like much of the tech industry – is careful not to label AI as a bad thing.

In the fight against cyber attackers, they think AI can help as much as it can hurt.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Villeneuve explained.

As AI advances, experts feel there will always be a bigger or newer way to try to protect a company, but those defenses are getting power from technology, too.

“AI is, ultimately, a better thing for defenders than attackers,” said Peter Smetny, regional vice president of engineering at cybersecurity firm Fortinet Canada.

His reasoning lies in the sheer number of attacks that other companies face and the resources needed to handle them or repel them.

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A 2023 study from EY Canada of 60 Canadian organizations found that four out of five experienced at least 25 cyber security incidents in the past year. Indigo Books & Music, London Drugs and Giant Tiger were all victims of high profile incidents.

While not all cyber attacks are successful, Smetny said many companies see thousands of attempts to break into their systems every day.

AI makes the catch more efficient.

“Maybe you only have four or five people on your team and there are only so many alerts they can do manually, but this allows them to focus and tells them which ones to prioritize,” Smetny said.

Without AI, an analyst would have to manually check that each attack is linked to an Internet protocol address, a unique identifier assigned to every device connected to the Internet, which can help trace the origin of the attack.

The analyst will also research whether the person at the address is known to the company and the level of their attacks.

With AI, an analyst can now query software using a simple language to quickly compile and present everything about an attacker and their IP address, including where they managed to install the program and what actions they took.

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“It can really, really save you a lot of time and point you in the right direction, so you can focus on the important things,” Smetny said.

But attackers have similar tools in their arsenal.

Dustin Heywood, chief architect of the IBM iX-Force global intelligence agency, said that anyone with bad intentions can turn to AI to help gather information through multiple breaches and put together a target profile.

For example, if the data tells them that someone regularly shops at Toys “R” Us or Walmart for baby products, it might tell an attacker who just had a baby.

Sometimes attackers resort to a practice known as “pig-slaughtering” to fill in any information they say.

“You’re going to have a bot that starts talking to a person, starts building a relationship using things like artificial intelligence,” Heywood said. “They will make them feel happy and trusted, and then … they will start to release information.”

When attackers obtain financial information, a social insurance number or enough personal information to log into an account, the data can be used to make a false credit card application or sold to other criminals.

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The potential damage snowballs even more if there is enough material to make a deep forgery, which is a clip of someone doing or saying something they didn’t do. Villeneuve’s example of his friend apparently leaving a message for his wife is an example of this tactic.

For smaller targets, AI does most of the heavy lifting, freeing up attackers to focus their attention on high-value victims.

“You can have a bot operator talking to 20 people at once,” Heywood said. “Before, it was a farm for people in the third nation, writing on mobile phones.”

He also heard of people using augmented reality glasses that pull personal information instantly, including their personal data being sold on the dark web, as soon as you look at them, and others working in “jail” AI chatbots that extract personal information from people. they have entered.

The evolution in attack convinced him that AI is “changing the game.”

“Back in the 1990s, it was teenagers, kids, college students who used to go on websites to pollute them,” he said. “And then more recently we’ve had a shift to ransomware where companies will have their computers encrypted.”

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Now, with the focus on impersonation, “really big business” Heywood said AI is pushing forward.

Canada’s anti-fraud agency said the country counted 15,941 fraud victims in the first half of the year, with $284 million lost in those incidents. There were 41,988 victims and $569 million lost last year.

Heywood, Smetny and Villeneuve feel that the fight against hackers is not in vain and companies are taking it seriously.

Their employers conduct tests for businesses such as banks and large retailers, simulating what it would be like if their companies were attacked, and help them prepare employees to deal with threats and detect and close software vulnerabilities.

It’s not hard to get businesses to take action, Heywood said, because a cybersecurity breach can cost companies an average of $6 million and result in lower stock, fewer sales and broken relationships with customers.

Anything they can do to stop the attack is worth it, he added, because “trust is gained by inches but lost almost immediately.”

This Canadian Press report was first published on October 20, 2024.

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