Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a massive role in cyber attacks and is proving both a "double-edged sword" and a "huge challenge," according to NATO. "Artificial intelligence allows defenders to scan networks more automatically, and fend off attacks rather than doing it manually. But the other way around, of course, it's the same game," David van Weel, NATO's Assistant Secretary-General for Emerging Security Challenges, told reporters earlier this month. Cyber attacks, both on national infrastructures and private companies, have ramped up exponentially and become a focal point since the war in Ukraine. NATO said this year that a cyber attack on any of its member states could trigger Article 5, meaning an attack on one member is considered an attack on all of them and could trigger a collective response.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a massive role in cyber attacks and is proving both a "double-edged sword" and a "huge challenge," according to NATO. "Artificial intelligence allows defenders to scan networks more automatically, and fend off attacks rather than doing it manually. But the other way around, of course, it's the same game," David van Weel, NATO's Assistant Secretary-General for Emerging Security Challenges, told reporters earlier this month. Cyber attacks, both on national infrastructures and private companies, have ramped up exponentially and become a focal point since the war in Ukraine. NATO said this year that a cyber attack on any of its member states could trigger Article 5, meaning an attack on one member is considered an attack on all of them and could trigger a collective response.

Whether or not your organisation suffers a cyber attack has long been considered a case of'when, not if', with cyber attacks having a huge impact on organisations. In 2018, 2.8 billion consumer data records were exposed in 342 breaches, ranging from credential stuffing to ransomware, at an estimated cost of more than $654bn. In 2019, this had increased to an exposure of 4.1 billion records. While the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as a primary offensive tool in cyber attacks is not yet mainstream, its use and capabilities are growing and becoming more sophisticated. In time, cyber criminals will, inevitably, take advantage of AI, and such a move will increase threats to digital security and increase the volume and sophistication of cyber attacks.

It is a truth in the IT sector that digital developments are rarely as impressive or dramatic as what sci-fi movies and books imagine them to be. Take AI cyber attacks as an example. There haven't been any robot or AI uprisings, obviously (at least not yet). But if you were to ask a random person if an AI cyber attack has happened yet, odds are good they will respond in the negative. But the reality is that AI cyber attacks have happened and are happening, with increasing regularity to boot.

There is a great deal of public concern about deepfakes, most of it centered on the ramifications of being able to quickly and easily face-swap videos. That concern is certainly well-founded, but it may be obscuring an even more immediate threat – deepfake audio. Voice-swapping has already been put to use in at least a handful of artificial intelligence (AI) cyber attacks on businesses, enabling attackers to gain access to corporate networks and convince employees to authorize a money transfer. The primary use of deepfake audio is to enhance a very common type of attack – business email compromise (BEC). A business email compromise attack usually begins with some sort of phishing to gain access to the company network and reconnoiter the payment systems.