Tag: AI
Majority of Orgs Hit by AI Cyber-Attacks as Detection Lags – March 7th
AI-driven cyber-attacks are becoming a widespread threat, with 87% of security professionals reporting incidents in the past year, according to SoSafe’s latest cybercrime trends report. Despite the growing concern, only 26% of security experts express high confidence in their ability to detect such attacks. The World Economic Forum noted a 223% rise in deepfake-related tools on dark web forums between early 2023 and 2024, further fueling concerns. While 91% of experts expect AI-driven attacks to surge over the next three years, nearly all respondents acknowledge the urgency of improving detection capabilities.
Companies complacent about AI-generated cyber-attacks
Companies are largely ignorant of the looming threat of increased artificial intelligence (AI) identity theft, despite the fact that 93 per cent of companies surveyed suffered two or more identity-related breaches in 2024. According to leading identity management company CyberArk Software, executives and employees alike are overconfident of their ability to spot ongoing ID-theft and subsequent cyber breaches, with over 75 per cent of respondents to a recent survey saying that they are confident their employees can identify deepfake videos or audio of their leaders. “Employees are [also] largely confident in their ability to identify a deepfake video or audio of the leaders in their organization. Whether we chalk it up to the illusion of control, planning fallacy, or just plain human optimism, this level of systemic confidence is misguided,” warns Cyberark following a survey of 4,000 US-based employees.
Toxic warning for China’s DeepSeek AI app
On January 31, Texas became the first US state to ban the Chinese-owned generative artificial intelligence (AI) application, DeepSeek, on state-owned devices and networks. New York swiftly followed suit on February 10 with Virginia imposing a ban on February 11. The Texas state governor’s office stated: “Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps. State agencies and employees responsible for handling critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and personal information must be protected from malicious espionage operations by the Chinese Communist Party. Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”
2025 forecast to be boom year for cybersecurity
California-based cybersecurity goliath Palo Alto Networks has issued a bullish revenue forecast based on a perceived rising global demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven security products. “In Q2 [2025], our strong business performance was fuelled by customers adopting technology driven by the imperative of AI, including cloud investment and infrastructure modernization," said CEO Nikesh Arora. “Our growth across regions and demand for our platforms demonstrates our customers' confidence in our approach. It reaffirms our faith in our 2030 plans and our $15 billion next-generation technology annual recurring revenue goal.”
Cybercriminals Weaponize Google AI assistant
Cybercriminals have been quick to see nefarious possibilities in search engine giant Google’s new Gemini 2.0 AI assistant. According to Google’s own findings, nation-state-backed threat actors are already leveraging Gemini to accelerate their criminal campaigns. The actors are using Gemini 2.0 for “researching potential infrastructure and free hosting providers, reconnaissance on target organizations, research into vulnerabilities, payload development, and assistance with malicious scripting and evasion techniques,” says Google.
Chinese AI offering rattles Big Tech investors
The start of this week saw roughly $1 trillion wiped off leading US tech stocks, following the launch of Deepseek, a Chinese rival to AI offerings such as Microsoft ChatGPT. What has really spooked the markets is that the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) assistant uses less data and generates lower all-round costs than its current Silicon Valley rivals. The expense of training and developing DeepSeek’s models is claimed to be only a small fraction of that required for OpenAI, putting into question the need to invest in the latest and most powerful AI accelerator chips from Nvidia. At the start of trading this week, Shares in Nvidia dropped a full10 percent and AI data analytics company Palantir lost seven percent in pre-market trading. Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Meta all also experienced a drop in their share price.
Can MSN’s new AI Copilot replace human workers?
In a matter of days, Microsoft will unveil the much-heralded new version of its Copilot software to a business world already severely disappointed by Big Tech’s initial AI offerings. It also comes hard on the heels of a stern warning from Gartner to organizations across all sectors that the cost of introducing artificial intelligence (AI) to the workplace could easily balloon by a staggering 500 -1,000 percent. But Microsoft’s current marketing push for its latest AI offering, a souped up version of its Copilot service, is rapidly gathering momentum, in spite of commercial AI’s dismal performance to date. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella is currently touring 39 cities around the world with new products and use cases for AI. He predicts that the performance of AI systems will double approximately every six months, and the AI revolution is about to be led by a souped-up version of the company’s existing Copilot software, part of the 365 package. "The question now is how do we transfer this to the real world…Think of Copilot as a user interface for AI," Nadella told an audience in Berlin.
Musk deems “Apple Intelligence” offering insecure
Bereft of fresh ideas or new products, Apple’s main offering at its long-awaited annual Worldwide Developer's Conference in Cupertino, California, is a cobbled-together artificial intelligence (AI) offering. While AI may be Silicon Valley’s latest buzzword and marketing tool, “Apple Intelligence,” as Apple AI is branded, is already attracting heavy criticism – even from other tech giants. By pairing Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT with Apple’s voice-activated assistant, Siri, Apple hopes to make AI mainstream. But its critics say that all Apple has done is create a cybersecurity nightmare for corporations while sounding a death knell for the personal privacy of Apple users. "It's patently absurd that Apple isn't smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!... Apple has no clue what's actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They're selling you down the river,” says Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder and the owner of X Corp, formerly Twitter.
AI could overload US power grid
Silicon Valley’s tech giants are fond of publicizing their green credentials by installing everything from waterless urinals to solar power. But, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), tech giants’ latest offerings, primarily artificial intelligence (AI), are driving energy consumption to unprecedented levels. The report, Electricity 2024 Analysis and Forecast to 2026, predicts that, if current trends continue, AI and cryptocurrency power consumption could more than double from 460 TWh in 2022 to up to 1,050 TWh in 2026, roughly equivalent to adding another Germany to global electricity consumption. According to the IEA, there are currently over 8,000 data centers globally, with about 33% of these located in the United States, with the largest data center hubs located in California, Texas, and Virginia.
AI “overrated and overhyped” say cybercriminals
The verdict on artificial intelligence (AI) from the real experts is finally in; professional cybercriminal fraternities have judged AI to be “overrated, overhyped and redundant,” according to fresh research from cybersecurity firm Sophos. It has, hitherto, been accepted wisdom in the cybersecurity industry that cybercriminals, free from any regulatory authority or moral scruples, were among the first to harness the awesome power of AI to create bespoke and virtually unstoppable malware. However, having infiltrated the Dark Web forums where top professional cybercriminals discuss their trade, Sophos reports that the cybercrime sector has thoroughly tested the capabilities of AI and found it wanting.
United States to regulate AI
US President Joe Biden has issued an executive order aimed at regulating artificial intelligence (AI), urging Congress to pass the necessary legislation as swiftly as possible. The announcement was made only 48 hours before tomorrow’s Global AI Summit in the UK, which US Vice President Kamala Harris will attend. The push to swiftly legislate indicates that the threat of AI is being taken seriously globally, with governments taking a coordinated approach. A mass of legislation and backroom deals with IT companies is surely set to follow.
Global AI summit mired in controversy
The UK-hosted Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit due to take place on Wednesday and Thursday this week, attended by world leaders and AI experts, is set to become the focus of a widening global debate on the dangers of AI. Last Thursday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out the agenda for the discussion, coming down heavily on the side of the AI doom-mongers, who once again are warning that AI poses an existential threat to humanity itself.