Criminals use artificial intelligence - not just for deepfakes. Europol, UNICRI and Trend Micro report on current and future threats from AI.
Trend Micro today announced a new research report, produced in partnership with Europol and the United Nations Interregional Institute for Crime and Justice Research (UNICRI). In it, the security researchers deal with the current and possible future use of artificial intelligence (AI) by criminals. The report provides law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and other organizations with information about current and potential future attacks using artificial intelligence and recommendations on how to mitigate these risks.
Potential benefits of AI technology
“AI promises the world more efficiency, automation and autonomy. At a time when the public is increasingly concerned about the possible misuse of AI, we need to make the threats transparent, but also investigate the potential benefits of AI technology, ”says Edvardas Šileris, Head of Europol's Cybercrime Center (Europol EC3) . “This report will not only help us anticipate potential malicious uses and abuses of AI, but will also proactively prevent and contain these threats. In this way we can unleash the potential of AI and benefit from the positive use of AI systems. "
The report concludes that cyber criminals will use AI as both an attack vector and an attack surface. Deepfakes (realistic-looking media content such as photos, audio and video that have been modified and falsified by AI) are currently the best-known use of AI as an attack vector Reduce the risk of disinformation campaigns and extortion, as well as threats targeting AI datasets.
AI could support the following types of attacks
- Convincing large-scale social engineering attacks
- Malware that can be used to exfiltrate certain data from documents to a large extent (document scraping)
- Bypassing image recognition and voice biometrics
- Ransomware attacks in which the victims are selected even more precisely and protective mechanisms are circumvented
- Data pollution from the identification of blind spots in recognition rules
"As AI applications have a growing impact on the real world, it becomes clear that this will be a fundamental technology in the future," explains Irakli Beridze, Head of the Center for AI and Robotics at UNICRI. “But just as AI offers very real benefits to society, the threat of malicious use is pervasive. We are honored to work with Europol and Trend Micro to shed light on the dark side of AI and to stimulate further discussions on this important topic. "
The report also warns that AI systems are being developed to improve the effectiveness of malware and disrupt anti-malware and facial recognition systems.
AI calculates passwords, breaks CAPTCHA codes, clones voices
“Cyber criminals have always been among the first to use the latest technology - and that is also the case with AI. As our report shows, it is already being used for password retrieval, CAPTCHA breaking, and voice cloning. There are also many more malicious innovations in the works, ”said Martin Rösler, Head of the Forward-Looking Threat Research Team at Trend Micro. "We are proud to work with Europol and UNICRI to raise awareness of this threat and thereby help create a more secure digital future for all of us."
At the end of the report, the three organizations recommend various measures for dealing with AI:
- Harnessing the potential of AI technology as a crime-fighting tool to make the cybersecurity industry and police force fit for the future
- Continue research in AI to develop more defense technologies
- Promote and develop secure AI design frameworks
- De-escalation of politically charged rhetoric about the use of AI for cybersecurity purposes
- Use public-private partnerships and set up multidisciplinary expert groups
The full research report is available online.
Go directly to the report at TrendMicro.com
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