Most energy companies today struggle with the complex technological and economic challenges involved in detecting, monitoring and preventing cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. The operational technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT) responsible for running energy systems today were never engineered to be secured in a digital environment; doing so poses a technical challenge tough to solve and difficult for small and mid-sized operators to afford. Yet in today's digital energy ecosystem, the failure of weak links can take down critical infrastructure for all participants. Protecting the entire system requires all industrial operators – both large and small – to detect and defend against cyberattacks. New developments in artificial intelligence (AI) based solutions can help all energy companies put defenders ahead of attackers, while adapting to the changing energy landscape.

AI is showing immense potential in the realm of energy management. FREMONT, CA: While technology is continuing to evolve itself every minute to support newer capabilities and offer better use cases to its users, the energy industry is looking to manage energy with high tech and increasingly dynamic ways. The modern energy industry has been realizing all the value that the technology of AI delivers to, and in response to this, today, almost every part of the core energy management ecosystem is driven by this technology merely. This could be the reason for the energy firms to consider AI to be increasingly reliable. By leveraging AI, the energy firms would tap into the art of predicting the future.

Deepfakes may have innocent and fun applications -- companies like RefaceAI and Morphin enable users to swap their faces with those of popular celebrities in a GIF or digital content format. But like a double-edged sword, the more realistic the content looks, the greater the potential for deception. Deepfakes have been ranked by experts as one of the most serious artificial intelligence (AI) crime threats based on the wide array of applications it can be used for criminal activities and terrorism. A study by University College London (UCL) identified 20 ways AI can be deployed for the greater evil and these emerging technologies were ranked in order of concern in accordance with the severity of the crime, the profit gained, and the difficulty in combating their threats. When the term was first coined, the idea of deepfakes triggered widespread concern mostly centered around the misuse of the technology in spreading misinformation, especially in politics.

We've all seen those videos of face-swapped individuals, often a parody of a popular film with a different celebrity's face superimposed over a another's via the power of artificial intelligence (AI). These videos and images have come to be known as deepfakes, and while many are indeed for harmless fun, the incredible realism of these videos leaves plenty of room for malicious behavior. Deep Trace Lab, a deepfake detection technology firm, found that the amount of detectable deepfake videos on the internet more than doubled to 49,081 in just the six months between January and June 2020. Not only that, but while deepfake prevalence was picking in the West last year, the first instances of convincing deepfakes here in Asia are starting to surface. The reported incident of face-swapping was reportedly in a Chinese TV series, when actress Liu Lu was blacklisted in the country, and her contract terminated.

A scammer used deepfake technology to swindle a U.K. energy company out of $243,000. By mimicking the voice of the CEO of the energy firm's parent company, the person behind the deepfake swindling convinced the energy firm's CEO to transfer the money within the hour, according to The Wall Street Journal. It's a troubling vision of the future -- in which digital misinformation becomes so sophisticated that even a phone calls from your boss becomes suspicious. The crime was reported to investigators by the energy firm's insurance company, Euler Hermes Group SA, which declined to name either of the companies involved, the WSJ reports. So far, no one has identified a suspect, but the money that the energy CEO sent to a Hungarian account has since been traced to Mexico, and from there it was more widely distributed.

It's one of our most distinctive features, but it seems that your voice isn't safe from cybercriminals, if a recent case is anything to go by. In the case, cybercriminals developed an AI that mimicked a CEO's voice so well, that it was able to scam an energy firm out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. The Wall Street Journal reported the scam, which happened back in March, and saw criminals swindle a staggering $243,000 (£201,000). The fraudsters used AI to mimic a chief executive from the German parent company of an unnamed UK energy firm. This voice was so believable that the UK-based CEO was tricked into making a large transfer of money to the chief executive, via a Hungarian supplier.