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Fraud is getting smarter, thanks to AI
AI-powered cybercrimes are on the rise, according to a recent report from cybersecurity firm Arkose Labs, letting hackers accelerate their attacks and making automated fraud more humanlike and harder to spot than ever.
One of the best defenses, Arkose and others in the industry say, is more AI. But only about one in five enterprises reported being “very well prepared” to deploy their own AI to defend against cyberattacks, according to the report, even though 88% say they’ve seen “a significant increase in AI-powered bot attacks” in the past two years.
Bots are being used by hackers to take over legitimate accounts at target companies andto create numerous bogus accounts, to take advantage of sign-up bonuses, according to the report. And some bots have even begun to target large language model systems themselves. They’re submitting their own prompts to AI to extract data to train their own models or even relaying prompts on behalf of their own customers, effectively selling their own subscriptions to AI services without authorization.
Other studies have recently found that generative AI can be used to automate phishing and social-engineering attacks. A recent report from Morgan Stanley pointed out that the technology can be used to create more targeted phishing messages faster than humans, meaning the attacks can not only be launched more quickly, they can be more effective. Some AI algorithms can also make AI more adept at guessing passwords, according to the report.
All that has led cybersecurity companies like Arkose Labs to develop new technology specifically designed to thwart modern bots. About three in five organizations believe AI to be essential to security threat response, according to a Capgemini report released Tuesday.
“The use of AI and Gen AI has so far proved to be a double-edged sword,” said Marco Pereira, global head for cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure services, at Capgemini, in a statement. “While it introduces unprecedented risks, organizations are increasingly relying on AI for faster and more accurate detection of cyber incidents.”
But AI-powered attacks are still a growing challenge—and in many cases, hackers may have a head start on harnessing the technology. “Enterprises are operating in an AI economy where bad actors leverage the technology for high ROI attacks while legitimate businesses lag due to internal hurdles like governance and approval processes,” said Arkose Labs CFO Frank Teruel in a statement.
Keeping generative AI itself secure is also an increasingly big business. Prompt Security, which helps businesses avoid data leaks and harmful content while using generative AI, announced Wednesday it had raised $18 million in a Series A funding round.
Commission Proposes “Manhattan Project” for AI
Among the recommendations listed in the annual report released to Congress Tuesday by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: a call to establish “a Manhattan Project-like program” aimed at developing artificial general intelligence.
“AGI is generally defined as systems that are as good as or better than human capabilities across all cognitive domains and would surpass the sharpest human minds at every task,” according to the report, which suggests Congress could provide funding for AI, data, and cloud computing companies to keep the U.S. in the lead on AI.
Whether today’s technology is anywhere close to the path to artificial general intelligence is hotly debated in AI circles, but the Commission seems determined to ensure that if such superintelligent AI does pop up any time soon, it does so on U.S. soil. Commission member Jacob Helberg—a senior advisor to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, generally known for his hawkish views on China—told Reuters that China is “racing toward AGI” and suggested such steps as making it easier to build data centers could boost U.S. AI development. AI data centers have seen pushback lately amid concerns that their high energy list could raise consumer power bills, accelerate climate change, and cause other environmental issues.
In general, China is making rapid progress in AI, according to the Commission’s report, though it still lags behind the U.S. and its allies in developing AI models and, especially, in producing the cutting-edge chips needed to power AI. The U.S. and allies, such as chipmaking powerhouse Taiwan, have worked to restrict China’s access to the latest processing hardware and the technology needed to make it.
“China is aggressively working to address this deficit,” according to the report.
Looking at the next big things in AI
Fast Company released its 2024 Next Big Things in Tech honorees this week, which includes a number of companies working in artificial intelligence.
Among those companies recognized by Fast Company is Bellwether, a company incubated at Alphabet’s X research lab that processes satellite imagery with AI to help respond to disasters; Enko Chem, which uses AI to design new, environmentally friendly weedkillers for agricultural use; and Qualcomm, whose Snapdragon chips are enabling new AI features on more than 100 mobile devices from manufacturers including Samsung, Honor, and Xiaomi.
Other honorees included Cerebras Systems, which is building AI supercomputers based on chips it says are speedier and more power-efficient than the GPUs commonly used for generative AI; and Nanotronics Imaging, which says its AI-powered computer-chip manufacturing plants are more efficient and significantly cheaper to build than traditional plants.
You can find the complete list here.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
- AI is already taking jobs, research shows. Routine tasks are the first to go
- How one LA doctor is using AI to help homeless communities get medical care
- For truly intelligent AI, we need to mimic the brain’s sensorimotor principles
- ChatGPT vs. Google: Which is more helpful for creativity?
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