Hackers have developed a'difficult to trace' new method to exploit AI tools inside workplace messaging app Slack -- tricking its chatbot into sending malware. The popular collaboration platform has gained prominence for facilitating quick communications between coworkers, with some linking it to a new age of'micro-cheating' and office affairs. The cybersecurity team within Slack's research program said Tuesday that they had patched the issue on the same day outside experts first reported the flaw to them. But the vulnerability, which lets hackers disguise malicious code inside uploaded documents and Google Drive files, highlights the growing risks posed by'artificial intelligence' that lacks the'street smarts' to deal with unscrupulous user requests. While the independent security researcher who first discovered the new flaw praised Slack for its diligent response, they went public with news of the AI's vulnerability'so that users could turn off the necessary settings to decrease their exposure.'

In 1999, a far-fetched movie about a dystopia run by intelligent machines captured our imaginations (and to this day, remains my favorite film). Twenty-four years later, the line between fact and fiction has all but vanished and the blockbuster hits much differently. Are we entering the Matrix? Are we already in it? While robot overlords haven't materialized (yet), modern life is inseparable from artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

They can also be used for financial fraud. Fraudsters can use deepfake technology to trick employees at financial institutions into changing account numbers and initiating money transfer requests for substantial amounts, says Satish Lalchand, principal at Deloitte Transaction and Business Analytics. He notes that these transactions are often difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. Cybercriminals are constantly adopting new techniques to evade know-your-customer verification processes and fraud detection controls. In response, many businesses are exploring ways machine learning (ML) can detect fraudulent transactions involving synthetic media, synthetic identity fraud, or other suspicious behaviors.

As the world enters a fully digital age, cyber threats are on the rise with massive data breaches, hacks into personal and financial data, and any other digital source that people can exploit. To combat these attacks, security experts are increasingly tapping into AI to stay a step ahead using every tool in their toolbox including unsupervised learning methods. Machine learning in the cybersecurity space is considered to still be in its infancy stage, but there has been a lot of traction since 2020 to have more AI involved in the process of combating cyber threats. Understanding how machine learning can be used in cyber security, recognizing the need for unsupervised learning methods in cyber security, and knowing how to implement AI in combating cyber attacks are the key to fighting cybercrime in the years ahead. The scary thing about cybercrime is that it can take up to six months to even detect a breach, and it takes an average of roughly 50 days from the time a breach is found to the time it is reported.

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. According to the World Economic Forum Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022 report, 48% of executives believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will influence cyber transformation in the next two years. AI is a powerful tool for both cybercriminals and cybersecurity experts. Hackers are using AI to make their attacks more sophisticated and harder to detect, while cybersecurity specialists are finding ways of integrating AI into corporate cybersecurity systems to minimize financial and reputational losses. A survey of the CEOs of the world s 500 most influential companies across 11 industries found that cybersecurity issues will be the greatest risk to company growth in the next three years.

The enterprise attack surface is massive, and continuing to grow and evolve rapidly. Depending on the size of your enterprise, there are up to several hundred billion time-varying signals that need to be analyzed to accurately calculate risk. Analyzing and improving cybersecurity posture is not a human-scale problem anymore. In response to this unprecedented challenge, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based tools for cybersecurity have emerged to help information security teams reduce breach risk and improve their security posture efficiently and effectively. AI and machine learning (ML) have become critical technologies in information security, as they are able to quickly analyze millions of events and identify many different types of threats – from malware exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities to identifying risky behavior that might lead to a phishing attack or download of malicious code.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are important components in helping enterprises maintain organisational resilience and detect cyberthreats. Asher De Metz, Lead Senior Consultant at Sungard AS, discusses the benefits of using this technology to become more cyber-aware. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be an immense humanitarian crisis that is severely impacting the global economy. As organisations have shifted to remote working to protect employees while continuing to serve customers, they have moved the majority of activities to the digital world – increasing the risk of cyberattacks and threatening Business Continuity. According to the World Economic Forum's COVID-19 risks outlook, employers are most worried about COVID-19 provoking a prolonged recession, followed by a surge in bankruptcies.

In this article, I will look at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help improve cybersecurity practices in an environment of ever-increasing threats and discuss the role of AI in alleviating the perennial talent shortage in the field of cybersecurity. Remember that the current wave of AI, driven by advances in deep learning, started around 2015, but the talent short- ages in cybersecurity precede that. I also caution that if we are not careful, AI can even be a double-edged sword when it comes to cybersecurity. Let me start with a flashback. About a decade ago, I used to audit the information security practices and cybersecurity preparedness of large global enterprises.

Artificial intelligence has long caused fear of job loss across many sectors as companies look for ways to cut costs, support workers and become more profitable. But new research suggests that even in STEM-based sectors like cybersecurity, AI simply can't replace some traits found only in humans, such as creativity, intuition and experience. There's no doubt, AI certainly has its place. And most business leaders agree that AI is important to the future success of their company. A recent survey found CEOs believe the benefits of AI include creating better efficiencies (62 percent), helping businesses remain competitive (62 percent), and allowing organizations to gain a better understanding of their customers, according to Ernst and Young.

The research revealed that while over half of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning in their security stack, nearly 60 percent are still more confident in cyberthreat findings verified by humans over AI. The survey responses, along with the theme of "Human Element" at RSA Conference 2020, reflect the need for security organisations to incorporate both AI- and human-centric offerings, especially in the application security space. Three-quarters of respondents use an application security tool, and more than 40 percent of those application security solutions use both AI-based and human-based verification. AI and machine learning have provided several advantages for cybersecurity professionals overall the past several years, especially in the face of the technology talent gap, which has left 45 percent of respondents' companies lacking a sufficiently staffed cybersecurity team. More than 70 percent of respondents agree that AI-based tools made their cybersecurity teams more efficient by eliminating over 55 percent of mundane tasks.