In today’s digital age, a company’s remote recruitment of a “computer engineer” turned out to be a hacker. After stealing several terabytes of data, the hacker demanded a ransom of $250,000. The rise of artificial intelligence brings convenience but also poses challenges to network security. Cybercrime is on the rise, and the scale of the dark web has become the third-largest economy in the world. Eric O’Neill, a former FBI undercover investigator, shared suggestions on dealing with cyber threats in an interview with InfoQ’s English website.
For technology practitioners, cyberattacks are coming rapidly and becoming increasingly difficult to stop. Cybercrime activities are on the rise, and the ways hackers obtain information are changing. Cybercrime has become the fastest-growing industry globally, with the total value of dark web crimes exceeding $12 trillion. Eric O’Neill took his own career as an example and pointed out that malicious individuals and others use classic cybercrime techniques when committing crimes. For example, in a case where a financial manager in Hong Kong was deceived, criminals used forged emails, Zoom calls, and AI technology to steal $25 million. Although banks can prevent transactions to a certain extent, they can do more, such as training customers to be familiar with the network security situation and controlling their own systems.
Regarding control systems, encryption is a difficult problem. We cannot blindly trust SMS verification. We can choose mobile identity verification applications. Tracking down cybercriminals comes down to data. Knowing one’s own data is the top priority for network security roles. For example, being clear about what data one has, who can access it, and where it is stored. Set up control systems for protection and identify suspicious access points through data and context.
AI is changing everything in a way that we may not be ready for. For example, a remote office engineer hired by a company is actually a hacker. Using AI to create an avatar and using a VPN to disguise the location, the hacker steals data and blackmails the company. AI is also changing the way we learn. For example, a female college student on a plane used ChatGPT to take an exam and got a perfect score but didn’t learn anything. This is worrying as people may lose creativity in the future.
Posted on December 25, 2024 at 5:45:54 PM on Wednesday.
