AI chatbots make scams convincing, warn spy chiefs
ARTIFICIAL intelligence tools are making email scams more convincing than ever, spy chiefs at GCHQ have warned.
Lindy Cameron, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said the emergence of AI bots “enhances existing threats” to the public, such as ransomware attacks.
In a report, GCHQ’S cyber security agency said the adoption of AI tools by criminal hackers would “almost certainly increase the volume and heighten the impact of cyber attacks”.
The most obvious application will be in phishing scams, where hackers trick victims into giving away personal details such as passwords or into clicking on dangerous links.
More sophisticated hackers will use phishing emails to try to inject ransomware on to target computers, locking down their systems and demanding a ransom paid in cryptocurrency.
A new wave of AI bots can write convincingly in plain English. They can “already be used to enable convincing interaction with victims” and do not typically have “the translation, spelling and grammatical mistakes that often reveal phishing”. The spread of AI tools could make it easier for even novice hackers to create advanced attacks, helping with translations or mass producing scam emails.
Ms Cameron said: “The emergent use of AI in cyber attacks is evolutionary not revolutionary, meaning that it enhances existing threats like ransomware but does not transform the risk landscape in the near term.”
The NCSC said hackers could ultimately use AI tools to produce more effective computer viruses, but this capability would probably be limited to “highly capable states” with extensive hacking expertise.
The potential to use AI in scams has alarmed cyber-security officials after the runaway success of CHATGPT brought these new tools to global attention.
Chatgpt’s rules prohibit its use for spam or generating malicious code, however some researchers have found ways to bypass these controls.
Other AI bots are freely available with no restrictions and in some cases hackers have created chat tools explicitly designed to manufacture fake emails or spread viruses.