(Web Desk) - Authoritarian governments and criminal gangs are racing to use artificial intelligence to turbocharge cyberattacks that could unlock the doors guarding our most sensitive secrets and our most vital infrastructure.
It raises the dangers for hospitals, schools, cities and businesses that already regularly fall prey to fraudulent emails from hackers who go on to sow chaos.
AI is poised to dramatically improve the success of phishing emails, hackers’ most devastatingly effective technique for breaking into people’s computers, email accounts and company servers.
Already, more than 90% of cyberattacks begin with phishing messages, which masquerade as legitimate communications from friends, family or business associates to trick people into entering their password on a fake login page or downloading malware that can steal data or spy on them.
And by harnessing AI’s text-generation and data-analysis capabilities, hackers will be able to send even more convincing phishing messages, ensnaring more victims and causing untold amounts of damage.
Experts believe Russia and China are studying malicious uses of AI, including for phishing. And in the criminal underground, talented developers are already building and selling access to custom AI platforms like WormGPT, which can generate convincing phishes, and FraudGPT, which can create fake websites to support phishing campaigns.
“We fully expect attackers to increasingly harness AI to create their phishing campaigns,” said Phil Hay, senior security research manager at the cyber firm Trustwave.
This looming revolution in phishing — powered by the same technology that has dazzled users with its ability to write essays and produce fake portraits in seconds — has alarmed some cybersecurity experts, who worry about a looming rush of malicious messages too sophisticated for most people to spot.
“If AI takes off the way that we're talking about now,” said Bryan Ware, a former head of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s cyber division, “phishing attempts will become more and more serious, harder and harder to prevent, harder and harder to detect.”