Generative AI Phishing

Prevention Tactics for Modern Threats

Phishing remains one of the most enduring and pervasive social engineering threats in the modern-day cybersecurity landscape, continually evolving in both sophistication and scale.

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), its threat level has increased significantly.

Today’s cybercriminals use generative AI to create realistic phishing emails that can easily deceive employees. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) just starting their technology adoption journey, these attacks pose a real financial and reputational threat, especially if there is a lack of practical knowledge in cybersecurity within your organization.

This article will discuss the significance of combating phishing in your cybersecurity strategy, the importance of learning about the role of generative AI in the danger it poses, and the options available to your SMB when the time comes to put protections in place for the long-term.

A brief overview of phishing

Phishing is a type of cyber-attack where attackers impersonate legitimate entities to deceive individuals into divulging sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, or other personal details. This deceptive practice often involves emails, messages, or websites that appear trustworthy, but are designed to steal your data for malicious purposes.

Phishing falls under the broader threat category of social engineering, referring to manipulative tactics used by cybercriminals to exploit human psychology and trick people into divulging confidential information. By leveraging social engineering, phishing attacks capitalize on human vulnerabilities rather than technical flaws, making them particularly insidious and effective.

Certain phishing attacks that use email as the medium come under the sub-category of business email compromise (BEC), where cybercriminals infiltrate or impersonate legitimate business email accounts to deceive employees into making unauthorized transfers of funds or disclosing sensitive information. Unlike traditional phishing, which often involves mass emails sent to a broad audience, BEC targets specific individuals within an organization, usually those in finance or executive roles. This targeted approach makes BEC especially dangerous.

Learn more: The Art of Deception: Social Engineering in the Digital Age

A brief overview of generative AI

Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that are capable of creating content, such as text, images, audio, and video, that mimics human creation. This technology uses advanced algorithms and neural networks to generate new data by learning patterns from existing data.

Generative AI can produce realistic and coherent outputs, making it a powerful tool in various applications, including content creation, design, and even simulating human interactions.

However, its ability to create highly convincing content also poses significant risk to be exploited by malicious actors. Unfortunately, it is used to enhance the effectiveness of phishing attacks.

Recommended reading: The Complete Guide to Generative AI in Business

How generative AI has been exploited for phishing

Phishing has evolved significantly since its inception, but its largest change yet was only made possible by the recent rise in the availability of generative AI for public and professional use.

Initially, phishing attempts were relatively simple, often involving mass spoofed emails and websites with generic content, often riddled with spelling mistakes and suspicious links. These early attempts relied on casting a wide net, hoping to catch a few unsuspecting victims.

As technology advanced, so did the sophistication of these attacks.

The advent of artificial intelligence and generative AI has dramatically transformed its threat level to highly realistic and personalized phishing emails, messages and even websites that mimic trustworthy sources, increasing the likelihood of success:

●      Because generative AI tools can analyze vast amounts of data instantly and adapt to protections dynamically, it can be used by phishers to easily mimic communication styles, bypass traditional security filters and deceive even the most cautious individuals.

●      For BEC phishing attacks specifically, generative AI is used to make the impersonator of an executive or trusted member of the business appear even more legitimate, as the cyber criminal can use generative AI to personalize the language even further by feeding the AI tool publicly available information about the targeted individual.

●      Finally, generative AI is additionally able to produce these fake messages at an alarmingly fast rate, almost enough to overwhelm even the most vigilant and well-prepared organizations through sheer volume alone.

This evolution of phishing, driven by generative AI, highlights the growing complexity of phishing tactics, and the urgent need for SMBs (and enterprises) to adopt advanced security protocols.

But if you aren’t convinced yet, there are also plenty of reports to convey the potential damage.

The prevalence of phishing in the modern workplace today

Phishing is one of the top 3 cybersecurity threats in 2024 based on sheer numbers alone.

●      The Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigation Report listed phishing as one of the top threat causes of data breaches that year, accounting for 40% of all social engineering incidents while increasing 10% from the previous year.

●      The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022 identified phishing as the costliest attack vector, at about $4.91 million dollars (USD) average cost per data breach incident.

●      For SMBs, it also falls under the most prevalent cyber threat of all (social engineering), with SMBs facing 350% more social engineering attacks than large companies, according to a Digital.com report (via Strongdm).

●      SMBs also receive the highest rate of malicious phishing emails, at one in 323, according to a report by Barracuda (via Strongdm).

If phishing was not on your organization’s radar, now is certainly the time to get up-to-speed.

The security industry’s response to phishing

With the role of generative AI in phishing attacks still evolving, there are not many publicly published case studies just yet. However, global vendors are on alert, and have released their analysis on how they are combating such instances of cybercrime.

For example, Microsoft has ran a public awareness campaigns and advisory material about the threat posed by spear phishing with AI and AI voice cloning technology, while Cloudfare released a detailed breakdown of generative AI’s role in BEC attacks, and how their software has adapted to block approximately 250 million malicious messages from customer emails.

The role of threat intelligence technological solutions has also been elevated in the wake of generative AI-led phishing attacks, with multi-factor authentication (MFA), advanced email filtering and user behavior analytics endorsed by solutions vendors and managed service providers (MSPs) alike in helping protect businesses quickly improve cybersecurity posture.

How to combat AI phishing with strategy and training

For SMBs and enterprises alike, employee training and awareness are critical in defending against phishing attacks when system protections fail like the ones mentioned above fail.

Regular security training helps your employees recognize and avoid phishing attempts, thereby reducing the likelihood of successful attacks, while also encouraging your workforce to convey the urgency of the threat and the value of staying vigilant amongst colleagues and clients.

Training programs combatting AI phishing should cover the following aspects:

●      Identifying phishing emails: Formal education programs for employees on common AI-led phishing tactics, such as urgent requests for personal information, unfamiliar senders, and suspicious links or attachments.

●      Reporting procedures: Ensure employees know how to report suspected phishing emails, including those that look AI-enhanced, to your IT department or IT partner.

●      Simulated phishing tests: Conduct regular phishing simulations to test and improve employee awareness and response across the organization.

If you are an SMB with limited IT resources or currently lack the internal expertise to spearhead training or solution protections against generative AI-powered phishing - or any other form of social engineering -, it is highly recommended to consider the assistance of a managed service provider that specializes in cyber awareness training and cybersecurity solutions.

Why managed services is your next step for AI phishing defense

Managed services leverage artificial intelligence to provide advanced threat detection and response, identifying and mitigating AI-driven phishing attempts before they can cause harm.

They also fully manage the planning, implementation, management and maintenance of these cybersecurity solutions on your SMB’s behalf, which can free up your team to focus on your core operations. By investing in these solutions, you can protect your business, ensure a secure environment to focus on growth and innovation, and proper education about AI technology.

If you are looking for a MSP partner to help you combat AI-led phishing, speak to the team at SparkNav and learn today how our team can bring your security game to the next level.