How AI Impacts the Future of Email Security
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a staple of any conversation revolving around technology at the moment. And with rapid advances made in the past few months, it seems that the trend of AI development isn’t going anywhere fast.
From AI-generated conversation and writing tools, to AI-generated art and music, these technologies are taking off quickly, with a seemingly infinite range of applications.
But as with any technology, with all of the good that AI brings, it also comes with risks.
A July 2022 report by Acumen Research and Consulting states the global AI-based security technologies market was $14.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $133.8 billion by 2030, a nod to the growing impact of these technologies–and the fight against them.
Base-Level Security Isn’t Enough
While traditional email gateways are still needed as the first line of defense against attacks, they can’t always protect organizations from attackers that don’t fit the typical descriptions. AI-based attacks don’t just exploit human error; as they become smarter, they’ll find new gaps in security technologies that humans can’t detect.
AI-powered cyber-attacks are much more common than in past years, and, unfortunately, AI-generated phishing emails also have significantly higher open rates than those created by humans. Additionally, with machine learning and AI-powered voice phishing and smishing (SMS phishing) on the rise, AI-focused hackers can leverage a deadly combination of tactics and tools.
How Hackers are Exploiting AI
For example, hackers could build phishing campaigns based on voice message analysis, bringing those insights into a phishing email that seems incredibly realistic based on real-world content.
Or, hackers may use popular AI technologies like ChatGPT to build sophisticated phishing kits based on user (in this case hacker) prompts. By inserting a series of short commands into ChatGPT, the AI tool can create phishing templates and serve up malicious code within seconds, making any curious internet user into a ready-made cyber criminal.
In other cases, hackers may place AI-powered malware directly inside a system so that it collects data and observes user behavior until it’s ready to build and launch another form of attack or send out sensitive information it has uncovered.
How to Integrate AI in Your Security Toolbox
But what if your organization could harness the power of AI as a way to protect your business against this type of artificial intelligence?
At Librasesva, our email security solutions leverage a behavioral AI engine called Adaptive Trust. Adaptive trust uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand what’s normal communication behavior for individuals and organizations and assess the risk of new communications coming in based on those patterns.
In human relationships, trust must be earned and then grows and adapts based on behaviors over time. With this same type of knowledge, Adaptive Trust flags actions that seem out of line through learning about relationships over time. In doing so, Adaptive Trust proactively holds suspicious email sends so your organization can dramatically reduce threats from email compromise, phishing attacks, and impersonation.
We believe that, for AI, human intelligence is a reference, not a landmark. To that end, we’ve built Adaptive Intelligence to work based on the strengths of its intelligence, not ours. Learn more about our unique approach to AI-based email security.
