Brian Finch in NBC Los Angeles: Cyber Criminals Leveraging AI in Phishing Emails and Other Attacks

In an interview with NBC Los Angeles, Public Policy partner and co-leader of Pillsbury’s Cybersecurity, Data Protection & Privacy practice Brian Finch explains that increasing the efficacy of phishing emails and other social engineering attacks is one of the primary ways cyber criminals are leveraging AI.

“Historically, phishing emails have been somewhat easy to spot thanks to sloppy drafting,” Finch said. “In particular, phishing emails created by a hacker unfamiliar with a certain language [have] tended to be easy to spot due to poor grammar, illogical vocabulary, and bad spelling.”

Nevertheless, Finch states that AI permits numerous individuals to generate convincing text seen in phishing emails quickly and inexpensively. As a result of this new security environment, organizations may consider updating their training programs and tools to avoid employees falling prey to cyber attackers.

“AI is so new that most people, including business executives, don't really understand how it can be used for malicious purposes,” Finch said. “Business leaders need to educate themselves and their employees about the emerging negative uses of AI.”

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