Artificial Intelligence Has Been Tricking us For Quite Some Time
Since ancient times, humans have faced a constant battle against tricksters and con artists. As technology advanced, so did the methods employed by these malicious actors. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) has joined their tool kit of tricks, introducing a new era of deceit.
With the rapidly growing industry of Artificial intelligence and machine learning, phishing and cyber scams have reached never before seen levels of sophistication. This is making it more challenging for organizations to detect and combat these threats.
In this captivating article, we dive into the long history of AI trickery, exploring how algorithms have manipulated humans and the potential risks they pose. There is bad actors within the AI space, we all need to be aware of this and all work together in an effort to protect one another.
The Rise of AI-Driven Phishing
Using deep learning language models like GPT-3, hackers can unleash mass spear phishing campaigns, personalized attacks that leverage AI’s capabilities to deceive victims effectively.
At a security conference in Las Vegas, a team demonstrated how an AI algorithm surpassed human-written phishing emails, garnering significantly more clicks on their embedded links. The increasing accessibility of AI platforms allows hackers to exploit low-cost AI-as-a-service, enabling large-scale attacks with hyper-personalized emails that appear incredibly authentic.
Let’s face it ChatGPT has improved over the past 12 months and now can create some pretty good content. You should use this tool as more of an aid to create better content online, not to deceive others.
Decades of AI Deception
While AI-as-a-service attacks are relatively new, machines have been tricking humans for decades. In the 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum created the first program, Eliza, a chatbot pretending to be a psychotherapist. To Weizenbaum’s surprise, his colleagues believed Eliza was real, sharing personal information with the “doctor.” The ease with which users divulged their secrets to a simple program revealed the susceptibility of humans to AI manipulation. Over time, this vulnerability has grown, culminating in recent instances where engineers mistook AI chatbots as sentient beings.
We spoke more about this on the development of AI Chatbots over the years. We are already hearing about new technology that is being released that is causing concern for deception. Tools like Microsoft’s VALL-E has caused a bit of concern as it is able to mimic peoples voices. You can see why some bad actors might want to exploit this.
Heck we just spoke about people falling in love with AI. So it could be possible for an individual to design and implement a working robot. You can see where we are going with this one can’t you?
The Menace of Deepfake Social Engineering
AI’s capabilities extend beyond conversational mimicry. Voice style transfer and deepfakes pose a real cyber threat. In documented cases, fraudsters employed voice conversion to impersonate CEOs and manipulate organizations into transferring funds.
As deepfake technology advances, targeted social engineering attacks have become more sophisticated, leaving many organizations ill-prepared to defend against them. Despite the acknowledged risks, few have taken significant steps to counteract deepfakes. We have already seen that stable diffusion can already create deep fake videos and images. It is possible to use this AI Generated art tool to make realistic human images, this has caused a lot of concern for some.
Social engineering has always been an issues. It’s just now you can pretty much clone someone else’s behaviour and mannerisms. This is why we tell people to start learning the vulnerabilities ai has. It would be highly advised that you create special pass phrases to ensure you are talking to the right person.
The Ongoing Battle: Tricking the Trickster AI
As the number of AI-designed attacks increases, organizations face an overwhelming challenge to protect themselves 24×7. These AI-driven attacks have proven effective, finely targeted, and difficult to attribute. AI technologies continuously expand cybersecurity threats, potentially outsmarting human comprehension. However, AI tools can also be harnessed to our advantage. Advanced analytics and machine learning models can aid in detecting fraudulent activities and countering the most sophisticated phishing and scam attempts.
Conclusion
From ancient fraud to AI-driven deception, history reveals the continuous evolution of human trickery. AI has brought a new dimension to these manipulative endeavors, elevating phishing and cyber scams to unprecedented heights. As the threat landscape grows more complex, organizations must embrace AI’s potential as both a double-edged sword and a shield.
Only by employing AI-powered tools, can we tackle the challenge head-on, bolstering our defenses and staying one step ahead of the ever-evolving AI tricksters. Only through a combination of human vigilance and AI prowess can we safeguard ourselves from this cunning deception in the digital age.
