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AI Ups the Ante in 2024: How the Rising Threat Will Impact the Year Ahead

By Anthony Cusimano, Technical Director of Object First

Ransomware has continuously been on the rise, but this year, with generative AI driving the majority of technology conversations, it's undeniable that the advancements of Artificial Intelligence will impact the 2024 threat landscape. The critical questions that individuals, companies, and stakeholders should now ask ourselves include: who will exploit this technology? Where will cyberattacks be targeted? And what are the repercussions? Here are my predictions about how cyberattacks will evolve in 2024 due to advancements in AI.

As Gen Z enters the workforce in 2024, there will be an increase in AI-based attacks

The younger generation of workers are "chronically online" - posting and sharing every detail of their lives on social media, from where they work to how they take their favorite coffee order. These mundane actions may seem harmless, but the rise of AI tech gives cybercriminals a wealth of content on which to train AI impersonations and deepfakes.

We've already started to see how realistic these deepfakes can look, exemplified by the recent MrBeast deepfake scam ad that made it past the filters on TikTok. Deepfakes can be used to trick other employees at a company into thinking they're being contacted by a real colleague when, in reality, it is a cybercriminal using sophisticated AI tools to obtain passwords, money, or network access.

Between visual, audio, and textual disinformation that's presented to Gen Z on a daily basis, these advanced impersonation tactics have the potential to soar in 2024. Keeping track of data by integrating data backup and recovery into a company's security portfolio will become critical to combatting an ever-evolving threat. By adequately implementing data backup, schools ensure their IT teams have a clean copy of data to recover when - not if -ransomware gets through.

Cybercriminals will feel the pressure next year as AI and automation displace lower-tier cybercrime

This year, we've seen concern about AI's potential to take thousands of jobs. For cybercriminals who already sing to the tune of "desperate times call for desperate measures," the pressure will rise next year as AI and automation take over lower-tier cybercrime. Simple ransomware methods such as phishing, smishing, or vishing will become plentiful, leading cybercriminals back to the drawing board to exfiltrate data more sophisticatedly.

Those who lead cybercrime operations and developers who sell their code but don't actively conduct attacks will be safe from replacement by AI and more than happy to have one less liability or payout on the team. Many leaders assume they are prepared to defend themselves by taking a reactive approach to security. Still, the best defense against ransomware is a strong offense: implementing an immutable data protection strategy to ensure data is always recoverable.

Cybercriminals will continue to target backups in 2024

Targeting backups won't go away, especially as cybercriminals start to realize many businesses would rather pay the ransom than deal with the financial repercussions of downtime and slow recovery. However, a sluggish or downturned economy is the worst time to let security guards down, as restless cybercriminals seek to take advantage of organizations' inability to tolerate downtime. It will prompt a return to the basics for organizations as they re-focus on disaster recovery plans, including their data's recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). A spectacle was made of what happened to major companies like MGM and Johnson Controls in 2023, and other businesses will want to ensure they don't become the next headline in 2024.

Though it's expected that backups will continue to be targeted, following a Zero Trust Data Resiliency architecture that encourages concepts like least privilege access, proactive validation, and immutability offers a reduced risk of ransomware encrypting backup data. With immutability especially, organizations can find a last bastion of defense to ensure that data is incorruptible against any attack. Zero trust and immutability are two critical components to staying resilient and free from the ever-evolving threat of ransomware in the age of AI.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony Cusimano has worked in many roles in tech for over a decade. He started as a developer, shifted to sales, and masterfully moved into marketing. He is a passionate gamer who stays up to date on all things technology to ensure he can achieve as many frames per second as possible on his gaming PC. He enjoys speaking at events and has previously shared the stage with astronauts and MARVEL superheroes.   

Anthony enjoys the nerdier things in life, watching classic movies, building Gundams, and flying questionably legal FPV drones in abandoned mall parking lots. When he isn't geeking out on the latest fad, he and his wife Sarah enjoy visiting lesser-known Florida destinations and spoiling their two dogs, Luna and Smudge.