For many business owners, artificial intelligence (AI) still feels like something that is in the future, but in reality, AI is here now in our everyday lives and can be used for both good and bad.
Many SMEs believe that cyber attacks won’t be targeted at them as cyber criminals are more likely to target large organisations. However, in reality, SMEs are a huge target for cyber criminals. For example, the Cyber Breaches Survey 2024 found that the risk of cyber attacks on medium sized businesses is 70% (much higher than the average of 50% across all sizes of business).
So, not only is the risk from cyber attacks ever increasing, but the way cyber attacks are targeted at businesses is evolving. Cyber criminals are already using AI to launch attacks.
The National Cyber Security Centre reports that artificial intelligence will almost certainly increase the volume and heighten the impact of cyber attacks over the next two years and that AI will make cyber attacks against the UK more impactful. AI lowers the barrier for novice cyber criminals, hackers-for-hire and hacktivists to carry out effective access and information gathering operations.
However, all is not lost for business owners! Whilst AI is impacting how criminals launch attacks, it can also be used to counterbalance the threat of cyber attacks, by being used by your IT providers to protect your data and organisation.
AI has the ability to process huge amounts of data, learn, adapt and detect possible cyber attacks. It can enable automatic cyber threat detection, generate alerts, identify new strands of malware and protect your businesses’ sensitive data.
How cyber criminals are using AI today
AI is already being used by cyber criminals today in ways such as:
- Generative AI being used to write ‘lure documents and emails’ enabling more convincing phishing attacks asking for sensitive information, transfer of funds or password resets, without the spelling or grammatical errors as seen in the past.
- The ability of processing vast amounts of data enables criminals to faster identify high value assets to target.
- Making past cyber techniques more effective through its learning capabilities and processing of data.
- Automated code generation allows criminals to create new variants of malware quickly to generate different attacks with different characteristics.
- Scanning and discovery of vulnerabilities in systems.
How AI can better protect your business from cyber attack
There are a number of ways that AI could better protect your business as follows:
Authentication of users
AI can analyse large amounts of data and can be used to detect if a login is genuine. Things like fingerprint and face recognition, typing styles and voice patterns can all be used to authenticate and check that a login to your systems is genuine.
Simple tools that are readily available such as CAPTCHA can quickly assess if a human or a machine is attempting a login. Cyber criminals often use ‘brute force attacks’ where hundreds of thousands of password guesses and attempts are made in a short space of time and AI can detect this type of increased activity.
Spotting anomalies
By analysing vast amounts of data and learning patterns of behaviour, AI can quickly identify normal behaviour from your users and then flag behaviours or activity that doesn’t fit the normal pattern. For example, it could flag someone logging in from a different country or location or sensitive data being accessed or transactions that are unusual.
Phishing detection and prevention
Phishing attacks are becoming some of the most common attacks on businesses. This is where attackers send scam email (or text messages) that contain links to malicious websites. These websites then contain malware which can sabotage your systems. They are also used to trick users into sharing things like passwords, resetting passwords or transferring money.
AI can spot indicators of malicious messages, analyse email content and context to decide where a message is spam or genuine. AI can quickly and easily identify signs of phishing, such as email spoofing, forged senders, and misspelled domain names.
Search for characteristics of cyberattacks
Many IT companies are training and using AI to recognise the patterns and characteristics of particular cyberattacks such as malware. It can then alert IT security teams and increase the speed of response to attempted breaches and threats to your business. Systems and processes could be automatically shut down until the issue is resolved or before the attack causes widespread damage to your business.
Quick detection and multiple threats
Whilst we as humans often deal with only one or two tasks at a time, machines can scan for multiple threats at the same time across your whole network. Increasing the chance of malicious behaviour being detected far quicker than any human could.
The benefits of AI in cybersecurity
The benefits of AI to detect and avert a cyberattack are already far reaching, these benefits include:
- The ability of AI to learn quickly and continually.
- Discovery of previously unknown threats.
- Analysis of vast data volumes in short spaces of time.
- Improved detection and response times to any threats posed.
- Identification of anomalies in behaviours.
- Enhanced security.
What should you do next?
AI is already being used by cybercriminals and is allowing less experienced cybercriminals to improve their attacks and tactics. Whilst AI in cybersecurity is playing a pivotal role in the fight against more advanced cyber threats, it is impossible to fully protect your business from an attack as criminal’s tactics become more advanced, whether through scams such as phishing or ransomware.
Therefore, it is still imperative that you protect your business in the best way possible from an attack. Firstly, you should speak to your IT providers to understand how they are utilising AI to improve resilience, detection and security for your business.
You should also protect your business should an attack happen, and this can be done by taking out cyber insurance for your business. Find out more here about cyber insurance and why it is important for your business.
We can advise on the best cyber insurance policy to suit your business needs. Get in touch with us today by calling 0116 260 0506 or email mail@harboroughportas.com for more help and advice on cyber insurance and other commercial insurance.
