When OpenAI presented his program ChatGPT In November 2022, it made applications of AI were accessible to almost everyone. The chatbot made the AI for ordinary people, not just data scientists or computer engineers.
But not everyone wants to use these tools for benign purposes. Earlier this year, a financial worker in Hong Kong transferred more than USD 25 million to scammers who used technology deepfake to impersonate the company’s CFO in a video call.
“These are things that keep me up at night,” he said. Maria Milosavljevicdirector of the information security group at ANZ Banking Groupduring a virtual conversation Fortune on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, the AIwhich is incredibly useful and powerful, is available to both our friends and our enemies.”
The event, held in association with Accentureexplored the interaction between new tools of Generative AI and cybersecurity.
There is “an expansion in the scope and volume of attacks in general,” he said. Scott Wilkiea global leader in emerging technology security AccentureThe consulting firm has seen roughly a “doubling” of attacks from ransomware and a 1,000% increase in attacks phishing in the last 12 months.
“The Generative AI and new large language models are enabling more sophisticated attacks at greater volume,” he said.
Calvin Ngdirector of the cybersecurity program center at the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, acknowledged that the frequency and severity of cyberattacks had increased. Appropriate risk assessment and management are necessary, she explained.
“You can easily create a phishing email, you can easily automate malware,” he elaborated. ng. “You don’t need to be a cybersecurity professional; you can create malware using ChatGPT. Things are getting simpler; “Doing evil is simplified today.”
ng warned about the potential for “data pollution,” where an adversary targets the training set behind a model AI. Organizations need to think about the consequences of deploying AI that can “crawl information from everywhere and produce information freely without consulting anyone,” and put up barriers to prevent data contamination, he explained.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that he had discovered a way to release a model of Generative AIcausing it to ignore its barriers and generate content related to explosives, drugs and politics.
However, the panelists also noted that the AI can help, not just hinder, cybersecurity teams.
“We receive over 10 billion data events every day. We can’t have humans reviewing every single thing, so 35% of our incident response has already been automated thanks to machine learning and AI“, said Milosavljevic.
Cybersecurity as a ‘team sport’ As attacks expand, cybersecurity is less of an initiative that only concerns IT departments. YOU. On Wednesday, panelists noted that cybersecurity is not just an enterprise-wide initiative, but an effort that includes multiple parties, including national governments.
“We have always said that cybersecurity should be a team sport,” he said. Wilkie. “Certainly in the last five years, I have never seen a time when the collaboration was greater or had better intentions.”
For example, some 40 countries are part of an international pact to agree not to give in to the demands of the attackers of ransomware. Members also agree to work together to undertake research projects to build resilience.
Part of why governments are concerned is also because of national security and geopolitics. While technology can help a country grow its economy, it needs to do so in a “balanced environment,” he said. ng.
Companies, and particularly those outside of heavily regulated industries, really need to get their “basic cyber hygiene right,” he said. Jennifer Tiangregional director of cyber practice for Asia at Willis Towers Watson. He compared this to home security: Having the most sophisticated camera systems means little if homeowners choose not to lock their doors.
“The risks they face are very sophisticated,” he said. “They need to get the basics right and invest where perhaps there was minimal investment.”
(C) 2024, Fortune
