AI, the Future of Cybersecurity

In August this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on an unusual case of AI being used in hacking. Using AI, the attackers were able to impersonate a CEO's voice convincingly enough to compel a colleague to transfer nearly a quarter of a million dollars into their accounts. As unusual as it may seem, this "vishing" or voice phishing attack – a more sophisticated take on conventional phishing scams – wasn't exactly unprecedented. Vishing attacks have grown nearly 350% since 2013 and recent predictions indicate that the phenomenon will only become more commonplace in 2020 and more sophisticated as ML/AI technologies mature. Emerging AI-enabled cyberthreats such as vishing represent a new challenge for cybersecurity analysts and CISOs.