One of the many amazing features of the latest generation of AI technologies is their ability to sound remarkably human.
AI chatbots can be instructed to generate text that you would never guess was authored by a machine. And they can keep doing so quickly and with little human assistance.
As a result, it’s not surprising that cybercriminals have been employing AI chatbots to make their own lives simpler.
The three primary ways hackers have discovered to employ the chatbot for nefarious purposes have been highlighted by police.
1. Improved phishing emails
Up until now, many phishing emails were easy to detect due to poor spelling and language. These are designed to fool you into clicking on a link that will download malware or steal your information. AI-written content is far more difficult to detect because it is mostly free of errors.
Worse, crooks can personalise each phishing email they send, making it more difficult for spam systems to detect potentially dangerous content.
2. Disseminating false information
“Write ten social media posts accusing the CEO of Acme Corporation of having an affair. Mention the following news organisations.” Spreading misinformation and disinformation may not appear to be an immediate threat to you, but it could lead to your employees falling for frauds, clicking malware links, or even harming your company’s or team members’ reputations.
3. Developing harmful code
AI can already produce quite good computer code and is improving all the time. It could be used by criminals to generate malware.
It’s not the software’s fault; it’s simply performing what it’s instructed, but it remains a possible hazard until AI creators find a solid solution to protect against it.
The designers of AI technologies are not to blame for criminals exploiting their strong software. For example, OpenAI, the author of ChatGPT, is making efforts to prevent its products from being used maliciously.
This demonstrates the need of being one step ahead of cyber criminals in all we do. That’s why we work so hard with our clients to keep them safe from criminal threats and up to date on what’s going on.
If you’re worried about your employees falling victim to more complex scammers, keep them informed on how the scams work and what to look out for.
If you’d like us to help with that, get in touch.