Email attacks against businesses have increased dramatically as hackers continually use generative AI tools to optimize their content and streamline malicious campaigns, new research claims.
A new report from Acronis based on data collected from more than one million unique endpoints in 15 countries, found that AI-powered phishing affected more than 90% of organizations last year, and that AI helped Email attacks grew by 222% between the second half of the year. 2023 and today.
“A disturbing trend is being recognized globally in which bad actors continue to leverage ChatGPT and similar generative AI systems to increase the efficiency of cyberattacks, create malicious code, and automate attacks,” said Candid Wüest, vice president of product management. from Acronis. “Now, more than ever, corporations need to prioritize comprehensive cyber protection solutions to ensure business continuity.”
Taking advantage of Chat-GPT
Email attacks, mostly phishing, remain the leading infection vectors, the report further states, with organizations experiencing a notable 54% increase in the number of attacks, per company. The majority of attacks occurred in Singapore, Spain and Brazil, and Acronis identified a third of the emails (33.4%) as spam. An additional 1.5% contained malware or phishing links, it said.
Phishing is the main infection vector for several reasons: email is ubiquitous, easy to use, and cheap. It's also easy to automate. Finally, victims overwhelmingly trust their email service providers to keep them safe from threats, and often click on links and download attachments without doubting their good character.
In the pre-ChatGPT era, the easiest way to detect a phishing attack was to simply use common sense and read the email message. The hackers are rarely fluent in English (many do not live in English-speaking countries) and their messages were full of spelling and grammatical errors, as well as clumsy writing and various inconsistencies. However, since the introduction of generative AI tools, email messages have become significantly more compelling.
“The Acronis H2 2023 Cyber Threat Report highlights the continuing threats facing businesses of all sizes around the world,” said Michael Suby, vice president of research at IDC. “Unfortunately, bad actors continue to profit from these activities and are leveraging AI-enhanced techniques to create more convincing phishing schemes, ensuring that this issue will continue to plague businesses.”
