Ransomware attacks continue to be one of the biggest modern cyber threats, affecting organizations and individuals on a global scale. Now, with the rise of AI technologies, cybercriminals are even better armed to enhance their tactics and create more sophisticated attacks. UK National Cyber ​​Security Centre assessed this phenomenon earlier this year and concluded that artificial intelligence is certain to soon increase the number and impact of cyberattacks – including ransomware.
Marc Rivero, Lead Security Researcher at Kaspersky GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team), highlights the importance of the threat and what security teams must do to stay ahead of developments:
“With the impact of ransomware attacks on public and private organizations growing to the point of threatening national security, it is no surprise that it is an urgent issue for national cybersecurity regulators. Now, the proliferation growing large language models (LLM) add additional power to the threat, allowing threat actors to leverage technology to augment their operations and launch more targeted attacks.
One way AI-based attacks can get worse is through neural networks, which are increasingly being used to create visuals for fraud. With the ability to effortlessly create realistic images and videos, perpetrators can easily create believable fake email files or malicious websites to drop ransomware onto victims’ computers.
Also, at the consumer level, security professionals have a larger attack surface to defend against. With LLMs following the guidelines to be incorporated into consumer products, this means that these AI technologies are being incorporated into everyday tools and services used by the general public. This integration brings new and more complex potential security vulnerabilities as the probabilistic nature of AI interacts with traditional technologies based on more predictable rules.
Even taking this into account, we are cautious that the threat landscape will change significantly anytime soon. As cybercriminals embrace new technologies, such as productive artificial intelligence, the pattern of attacks will change little. In many cases, the technology is not yet advanced or easy enough to use, in others, automated cyberattacks mean an automated red team, and the generation of more effective malware means the same efficiency gains for defenders, so the risks can be easily compensated by the new. perspectives
In general, to reduce the risk of ransomware attacks, strict cybersecurity measures should be prioritized, such as implementing strong security solutions, disabling unused services, and conducting systematic penetration tests and vulnerability scanning.”