AI enabled Phishing attacks on rise

3 min read

2024-03-31 ET

  • Enabled by AI, Phishing Becomes Quite Simple Cyber attacks are increasingly getting the better of people and their emotions as more fall prey to hackers
  • online attacks-called 'phishing' rely on human interaction, are on the rise.
  • They are easy to execute and are raising because of Sophisticated use of artificial intelligence (AI).
  • Also called 'social engineering attacks', these practices don't require complex hacking and rely on psychological manipulation of human emotions.
  • Phishing is the most common form of cyberattack in India, accounting for more than 84% of the total cyber threats received every year, according to Acronis, a leader in cyber protection.
  • The attacks grew 464% YoY in 2023, said Acronis.
  • Educated people fall for it and constant education is the only way, but unfortunately it is not reaching every one," said R Subrananiakumar, chief executive of RBLBank.
  • "They (scamsters) are coming up with innovative methods againand again."
  • IT teams in Indian organisations reports of 15 suspicious mail on any given workday.
  • According to a report on cyber security trends in 2023 by Nasscom, social engineering attacks in India led to 19.1 crore in losses on an average every year.
  • Spending on cyber security in the BFSI(banking, financial services and insurance) sector in India grew 35% to $1,738 million in 2023 from $518 million in 2019, according to Nasscom.
  • However, there are no regulatory guidelines on the minimum amount that must be spent on cyber security.
  • Most Indian banks spend 9-10% of their IT budget on cyber security
  • However, Dilip Asbe, chief executive and managing director of National Payments Corporation of India (NPC) said spending needs to be increased, and a common threshold on minimum budget for cyber secrity needs to be implemented.
  • "What many countries have adopted is, they have a certain amount of budget to be spent, at least for the financial services. Something like 25% of your IT spend should be allocated to information security", said Asbe.
  • "Most phishing scams that happen to the general public are not because a security application fell short, but because there is lack of cyber hygiene and awareness", said a security officer of a top private bank.
Alert
  • The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notified a master direction on IT Governance, Risk, Controls and Assurance Practices', which will take effect from April 1 this year:
  • The central bank had to rethink its strategy after Indian banks reported 248 data breaches in 2022,a fifth of the world's total.

10-05-24 The Hindu

  • With the generative AI industry projected to increase global GDP by as much as 7to∗∗7 to **10 trillion**, the development of generative AI solutions (such as ChatGPT in November 2022) has spurred a vicious cycle of advantages and disadvantages.
  • According to a recently published report, 1,265% increase in phishing incidents/emails, 967% increase in credential phishing since the fourth quarter of 2022 arising from the exacerbated utilisation/manipulation of generative AI.
  • As per a study conducted by Deep Instinct, around 75% of professionals witnessed an upsurge in cyberattacks in the past year alone, while 85% of the surveyed respondents have attributed the increased risk to generative AI.
  • Signing of the Bletchley Declaration at the AI Safety Summit Countries signed:
  1. China ,
  2. the European Union ,
  3. France,
  4. Germany ,
  5. Bharat,
  6. the United Arab Emirates,
  7. the United Kingdom and
  8. the United States of America
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