Generative AI the new battlefield for cyberspace in 2024
The year 2023 is ending and 2024 is standing at the door. Like this year 2023, 2024 is also likely to prove to be very good for digital technologies.
It is expected that it will prove to be quite challenging in the matter of cyber security also. Nowadays generative AI technology is in vogue and it is being used for good works as well as bad i.e., to deceive people by cyber criminals.
The way the nature of business and transactions are changing from manual to digital, it is expected that in the coming years, cyber crimes will also increase compared to today.
The year 2024 is going to be a very big year in terms of cyber security. Just as tension is increasing between countries, attacks on each other are increasing, similarly cyber crimes are also increasing.
Nowadays countries are not only carrying out military attacks on their enemy countries but are also carrying out cyber attacks on each other.
There is a possibility of threat of cyber crimes not only at the economic level but also at the domestic level in India. Some important events are going to happen in 2024. One of them is the Lok Sabha election which is going to be held in the upcoming year.
There is a possibility that Generative AI deepfakes, clearFakes etc. may be used in Cyber crimes significantly.
Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that can generate artificial text, images, audio, etc. using generative models.
The extent of the impact of cyber threat can be seen from the fact that in 2023 alone, 400 malware examples have been detected in a network of 8.5 million endpoints.
According to data security industry body DSCI, more than 5 lakh malware are discovered every day which are attached to more than 1 billion malware programs already published. This shows how huge the problem of cyber threat is and to what extent it can spread in the future.
Growing Challenges: Cyber Threats By Generative AI:
The way India has experienced an increase in the digital landscape in 2023, there is a possibility of further increase in the same way in 2024. But the increase in the digital landscape also creates the problem of containing cyber threats and this possibility cannot be ruled out.
Therefore, it is believed that there will be a significant increase in cyber threats in the year 2024 and Generative AI technology will play an important role in it.
It is also believed that cloud technology also has a place in the spread of cyber threats. As you shift data from local servers to the cloud, fraudsters get a lot more space to do their thing.
But this does not at all mean that we will not use cloud technology. We can make cyber security more robust which can help us in dealing with such threats.
After the development of technology like Generative AI, a new weapon has been put in the hands of cyber attackers.
Right now I have come across some examples of the misuse of Deepfake. Among these, two have gone viral – fake video of India’s respected Prime Minister playing ‘Garaba’ and fake video of actress Rashmika Mandana.
Apart from this, there are so many examples in which someone has been deceived or someone’s reputation has been ruined by imitating someone’s voice using these technologies.
The name of ClearFake is also in this list, in which with the help of technology like generative AI, a fake website or app is created and your precious data is stolen.
Many cyber security experts believe that this threat will increase in the coming years and we may see the worst form of cyber crime.
RaaS Model:
Experts in cybersecurity also anticipate the development of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) models, in which cybercriminals place these programs on the Dark Web to lower the bar for initiating attacks.
In order to get around conventional security measures, hackers are also anticipated to use sophisticated evasion techniques, which will make detection and mitigation more difficult.
Year 2023 marked a significant milestone in the public adoption of AI, as large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT began to blossom.
According to Harshil Doshi, Country Director (India & SAARC) of Securonix, this trend will also continue into the upcoming year 2024 as both hackers and cybersecurity professionals continue to rely on AI and machine learning technologies.
According to a survey, about 47% of Indians have been a victim of cyber crime as yet or know someone who has been a victim of it.
As these technologies become more believable and remove readily identifiable artifacts, it will become more difficult to discern authentic information from fraudulent or artificially generated content, which will have wider social and political ramifications.
According to Sundar Balasubramanian, Managing Director (India & SAARC) of Check Point Software Technologies, in the first three quarters of 2023, one in 34 Indian companies saw an attempt at a ransomware attack; this represents a 4% increase from the previous year.
Because organized ransomware groups, artificial intelligence, and hacktivism are driving cyberthreats, they are not only more prevalent but also more sophisticated, effective, and difficult to identify.
He noted that although data theft and destruction are frequently associated with cyberattacks, cybercriminals frequently utilize phony data and impersonation to disseminate chaos and false information.
The Rajya Sabha approved the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, and its provisions are anticipated to go into effect in the new year. The government stated that the Bill’s provisions would take effect within the next eight to ten months after it was passed.
More than half of the detections were made in the top ten cities in the nation, according to the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), an industry body for data protection established by Nasscom.
The remaining detections were made in Tier-II and III cities and towns in India. This could be because of the pandemic’s rise in the work-from-home culture. According to the report, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune have had the most detections overall.
Guidelines for remaining safe in this situation, according to the experts:
- Put multi-factor authentication into practice.
- Absolute lack of trust. When it comes to data security, never trust anyone.
- Choose solutions for real-time threat detection.
- AI and cybersecurity go hand in hand.
- Update the program frequently
- Educate the employees.
Conclusion:
In this article, we saw how with the vastness of the digital landscape, incidents like cyber threats are also increasing and technologies like Generative AI also play an important role in this. Like the year 2023, there are possibilities of growth in such types of incidents in 2024 too.
That’s all for now my friend! I hope this article will be valuable for you. You can reach me through the emails given below. I will love your valuable comments and feedback.
Yours
Abhijit Ranjan
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