AI Could Escalate New Type Of Voice Phishing Cyber Attacks

While many cyber security professionals have been looking at (and even investing in) the potential benefits of utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology within many different business functions, earlier this week, the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) issued a warning of a new type of cyber-attack that leverages AI to impersonate senior enterprise executives. The method instructs company employees to perform transactions including money transfers and other malicious activity on the network.

There are recent reports of this type of cyber-attack received at the operational center of the INCD. While business email compromise (BEC) types of fraud oftentimes use social engineering methods for a more effective attack, this new method escalates the attack type by using AI-based software, which makes voice phishing calls to senior executives.

The attacking software learns to mimic the voice of a person defined for it and makes a conversation with an employee on behalf of the CEO. It was also reported that today there are programs that, after listening to 20 minutes to a particular voice, can speak everything that the user types in that learned voice.