How will the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) impact cyber counterintelligence (CCI)?
Part III
What trends can we predict with confidence where AI serves as a threat catalyst? We can assume that deception efforts intended to undermine an organization's reputation will expand, along with the involvement of insiders to assist those attacks directly (or indirectly).
With this in mind, the current scope of Cyber Counterintelligence will undoubtedly have to expand in order to address new threats.
The staggering number of data breaches in the third quarter of 2022 is evidence of the threat landscape's ongoing evolution. Data breaches increased by 70% in the third quarter of the year, according to surfshark.com[1].
In a recent paper called: The Impact of Fake Reviews on Demand and Welfare[2] presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute, it estimated that fake reviews cost online shoppers around 12 cents for every dollar they spend.
Incidents such as data breaches, for example, can be quantified and the overall costs to organizations estimated.
But what happens when we have to anticipate the consequences of potential fake news campaigns directed at a company's workforce?
This type of campaign is designed to compel them to react, either by questioning the chain of command or by encouraging sensitive information exchange in forums that could be monitored by third parties.
Have we even begun to consider the prospect that a group could cultivate "intelligence sources" through a planned campaign of disinformation and social engineering.
From the victim organization's standpoint, such an operation is not too difficult to organize and carry out, but it is very challenging to control, and it is even more difficult to lay to rest before we determine the operation's goal(s).
CCI will need to be on the lookout for fabricated narratives on social media in the near future before they make the news and become a multifaceted problem. It is here that cybersecurity and counterintelligence will cross paths, allowing organizations to detect early warning signs of hostile or polarizing information challenges at the source. If this is the case, C-level executives may be able to take a more proactive rather than reactive approach.
Organizations need to reevaluate their information security posture with the input of their CCI team in order to meet the challenges of this entirely new class of information-based risks elevated by the input of AI.
CCI teams should exercise caution when, for example: a) the company has experienced significant financial growth, b) a data breach occurs, c) impulsive social media posts involving the company's stance on a particular issue have been detected or controversial comments are made by your own employees at company social gatherings or d) Sudden escalation of negative relations between your company and other competitors.
Any of the scenarios listed above can serve as the underlying reason for a disinformation campaign. Some may even be the first actions of an insider, or a bogus attempt by a third party to analyze and assess our reaction time.
In any case, we believe that artificial intelligence (AI) is currently assisting in the organization of deception campaigns, which will be enhanced in the near future by a combination of insiders and deepfake.
We will revisit this topic because the risk of harm is too great…
[1] https://surfshark.com/blog/data-breach-statistics-2022-q3