Hackers Have Already Started to Weaponize Artificial Intelligence

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: September 12, 2017 at 3:12:40 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Hackers Have Already Started to Weaponize Artificial Intelligence
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> [Note:  This item comes from friend Mike Cheponis.  DLH]
>
> Hackers Have Already Started to Weaponize Artificial Intelligence
> By George Dvorsky
> Sep 11 2017
> <https://gizmodo.com/hackers-have-already-started-to-weaponize-artificial-in-1797688425>
>
> Last year, two data scientists from security firm ZeroFOX conducted an experimentto see who was better at getting 
> Twitter users to click on malicious links, humans or an artificial intelligence. The researchers taught an AI to 
> study the behavior of social network users, and then design and implement its own phishing bait. In tests, the 
> artificial hacker was substantially better than its human competitors, composing and distributing more phishing 
> tweets than humans, and with a substantially better conversion rate. 
>
> The AI, named SNAP_R, sent simulated spear-phishing tweets to over 800 users at a rate of 6.75 tweets per minute, 
> luring 275 victims. By contrast, Forbes staff writer Thomas Fox-Brewster, who participated in the experiment, was 
> only able to pump out 1.075 tweets a minute, making just 129 attempts and luring in just 49 users.
>
> Thankfully this was just an experiment, but the exercise showed that hackers are already in a position to use AI for 
> their nefarious ends. And in fact, they’re probably already using it, though it’s hard to prove. In July, at Black 
> Hat USA 2017, hundreds of leading cybersecurity experts gathered in Las Vegas to discuss this issue and other looming 
> threats posed by emerging technologies. In a Cylance poll held during the confab, attendees were asked if criminal 
> hackers will use AI for offensive purposes in the coming year, to which 62 percent answered in the affirmative.
>
> The era of artificial intelligence is upon us, yet if this informal Cylance poll is to be believed, a surprising 
> number of infosec professionals are refusing to acknowledge the potential for AI to be weaponized by hackers in the 
> immediate future. It’s a perplexing stance given that many of the cybersecurity experts we spoke to said machine 
> intelligence is already being used by hackers, and that criminals are more sophisticated in their use of this 
> emerging technology than many people realize.
>
> “Hackers have been using artificial intelligence as a weapon for quite some time,” said Brian Wallace, Cylance Lead 
> Security Data Scientist, in an interview with Gizmodo. “It makes total sense because hackers have a problem of scale, 
> trying to attack as many people as they can, hitting as many targets as possible, and all the while trying to reduce 
> risks to themselves. Artificial intelligence, and machine learning in particular, are perfect tools to be using on 
> their end.” These tools, he says, can make decisions about what to attack, who to attack, when to attack, and so on.
>
> Scales of intelligence
>
> Marc Goodman, author of Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It, 
> says he isn’t surprised that so many Black Hat attendees see weaponized AI as being imminent, as it’s been part of 
> cyber attacks for years. 
>
> “What does strike me as a bit odd is that 62 percent of infosec professionals are making an AI prediction,” Goodman 
> told Gizmodo. “AI is defined by many different people many different ways. So I’d want further clarity on 
> specifically what they mean by AI.”
>
> Indeed, it’s likely on this issue where the expert opinions diverge. 
>
> The funny thing about artificial intelligence is that our conception of it changes as time passes, and as our 
> technologies increasingly match human intelligence in many important ways. At the most fundamental level, 
> intelligence describes the ability of an agent, whether it be biological or mechanical, to solve complex problems. We 
> possess many tools with this capability, and we have for quite some time, but we almost instantly start to take these 
> tools for granted once they appear. 
>
> Centuries ago, for example, the prospect of a calculating machine that could crunch numbers millions of times faster 
> than a human would’ve most certainly been considered a radical technological advance, yet few today would consider 
> the lowly calculator as being anything particularly special. Similarly, the ability to win at chess was once 
> considered a high mark of human intelligence, but ever since Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, this 
> cognitive skill has lost its former luster. And so and and so forth with each passing breakthrough in AI.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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