We Are Fast Approaching the Era of the Super Hacker

Featured article by Andre Smith, Internet Marketing and E-Commerce specialist

There is a lot of hype all over the web about Artificial Intelligence being used in cyber security; how Artificial Intelligence will outthink the hackers, even predicting attacks before they happen. Nevertheless, the token has two sides. Those who create cyber security software and those who create hacking tools are of the same flock of birds, only with a different colour of feathers.

While designers of cyber security programs are trying to think one step ahead of the villains, the villains are already thinking five to 10 steps ahead. Cyber security is still a reactionary game. While we are looking for the best NBN plans and worried about internet speed, we need to be worried about our security.

Artificial Intelligence used to protect the wider public hasn’t necessarily happened yet. When it does, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be enemies and criminals creating their own Artificial Intelligence programs. Even then, we are far from an actually workable AI that can be trusted to do the job.

In a recent report, Bloomberg wrote, “As marketers and the media blend and entwine artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyber security buzzwords into a confusing cocktail of badness-stopping power, government security buyers, like their enterprise counterparts, are swamped with misconceptions and a lack of differentiated product clarity.

“Some marketing of artificial intelligence promises more that it can deliver today. While cybersecurity vendors add AI branding to their products, the reality is that a majority of today’s solutions deliver subsets of AI capability – in particular, Machine Learning and Deep Learning.”

What will cyber wars and criminal hackers look like in the not so far future? This article will take a quick glance at that and more.

Rise in Nation Versus Nation Cyber Attacks

If you thought we were far away from actual cyber wars between sovereign nations, then best think again. Governments have been hacking each other for years – stealing classified documents and such. But as recently as the past year, suspicion has risen in regards to governments hacking electronic voting machines and changing the result of the 2016 US elections.

In a news report from Fox News that came out August 22, 2017, the US Navy reported that a naval ship crashed near Singapore. At the time this article was written, ten sailors were still missing. This would make the third US Navy war ship to suffer some mishap in the Pacific Ocean this year.

This is causing the US government to start looking hard at the possibility of cyber attacks targeting the US Navy. A possibility so serious that Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, has decided to halt all naval activities until an investigation is conducted.

The Danger of Malicious AI

Social hacking is when people fool their victims into thinking something that isn’t true in order to achieve a goal. An example of social hacking would be someone calling your house pretending to be a bank. They say something in the lines of, “We found an issue with your checking account and for emergency reasons, we must access it the right way. Can you give us your pass code?” Of course, hopefully, no one would fall for such a silly trick, but it’s only an example.

Now imagine, as Artificial Intelligence is better at mimicking social interactions, hackers can actually design malicious programs to handle the social engineering aspect of their social hacking schemes. Artificial Intelligence has the capability to handle customer service and other organizational functions, so it only makes sense that AI can be programmed to trick humans into giving up sensitive information.

We must understand going forward that AI and ML technology isn’t just about jobs getting taken away, or rogue AI or ML technologies taking over the world. We also have to worry about bad people creating malicious AI on purpose.

Andre Smith is an Internet, Marketing and E-Commerce specialist with several years of experience in the industry. He has watched as the world of online business has grown and adapted to new technologies, and he has made it his mission to help keep businesses informed and up to date.