The Digital Defense report from Microsoft reveals that cyberattacks have reached 120 countries, driven by espionage instigated by governments, and that artificial intelligence (AI) is already used as a weapon to perfect 'phishing' messages.
According to the document, “cyberattacks hit 120 countries, driven by government-instigated espionage and with influence operations (IO) also on the rise".
Based "across more than 65 billion daily signals, the study covers trends between July 2022 and June 2023 in nation-state activities, cybercrime and defense techniques“, says Microsoft.
Since September 2022, ransomware attacks have more than doubled (200%).
"Microsoft has blocked tens of billions of malware threats, 237 billion password attack attempts and 619.000 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks“, says the technology.
Almost half of the attacks targeted NATO member states and more than 40% “were aimed at government or private sector organizations involved in the construction and maintenance of critical infrastructure".
According to the report, “Although the attacks that were in the spotlight last year were often associated with destruction or financial gain from ransomware, the data shows that the predominant motivation has once again been the desire to steal information, secretly monitor communications or manipulate the what people read".
Russian secret servicesrefocused their cyberattacks on espionage activities in support of the war against Ukraine, simultaneously continuing to carry out destructive cyberattacks on Ukraine but developing broader espionage efforts, while “Iranian efforts, once focused on taking down the networks of their targets, They also tend today to amplify manipulative messages to promote geopolitical objectives or access data circulating on sensitive networks".
The report further points out that “China has expanded its use of espionage campaigns to obtain information aimed at boosting its 'One Belt, One Road' initiative or regional policy, to spy on the US, including key installations for the US military, and to establish access to networks of critical infrastructure entities".
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It also states that the “North Korean actors have attempted to covertly steal sensitive information, targeted a company involved in submarine technology, and otherwise used cyberattacks to steal hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency".
Furthermore, "Attackers are already using AI as a weapon to enhance phishing messages and enhance influence operations with synthetic images".
The AI “will also be crucial to successful defense by automating and augmenting aspects of cybersecurity such as threat detection, response, analysis and prediction” and “can also enable large language models (LLM) to generate insights and recommendations in natural language from complex data, helping analysts be more effective and responsive".
The report indicates that “it has already been possible to watch AI-driven cyber defense reverse the tide of cyber attacks", being that "in Ukraine, for example, AI helped defend Russia".
In that regard, "As transformative AI reshapes many aspects of society, there is a need for responsible AI practices that are crucial to maintaining user trust and privacy and creating long-term benefits".
Generative AI models “require evolving cybersecurity practices and threat models to address new challenges, such as creating realistic content – including text, images, video and audio – that can be used by threat actors to spread disinformation or create malicious code“, reads the report.
