#019 - Cyber AI Chronicle - Scamming is the Next Growth Industry

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Cyber AI Chronicle

By Simon Ganiere · 12^th May 2024

Welcome back!

Project Overwatch is a cutting-edge newsletter at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, technology, and resilience, designed to navigate the complexities of our rapidly evolving digital landscape. It delivers insightful analysis and actionable intelligence, empowering you to stay ahead in a world where staying informed is not just an option, but a necessity.

Table of Contents

• What I learned this week

  • TL;DR

  • Scamming is the Next Growth Industry

• Worth a full read

  • Reimagining secure infrastructure for advanced AI

    • Key Takeaway

  • AI is Mostly Prompting

    • Key Takeaway

  • Russia-Linked Threat Group Uses LLMs to Weaponise …

    • Key Takeaway

• Some more reading

• Wisdom of the week

• Contact

What I learned this week

TL;DR

• Another busy week in the cyber world:

  • Dell disclosed they have lost data of approx. 49 million customers. Did I ever mention API security as one of the hot topics of the moment?

  • Ascension, a major U.S. healthcare network, has been hit by “a cybersecurity event”. The incident disrupted clinical operations, connection to partners were cut off and ambulances were diverted.

  • Zscaler has been hit by a data breach on a particular test environment. There isn’t much information on how it happens yet.

  • Scattered Spider, the group behind the MGM Resort International hack last year, is back and targeting the financial and insurance industry.

  • The US and British authorities have identified the mastermind behind LockBit and have done so publicly. This is coming after the seizure of some of the infrastructure of Lockbit by the Cronos Taskforce Operation. The individual in question is obviously saying it’s not him 😝 

• Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, has been called by the Homeland Security Committee to testify over Microsoft shortcomings. Microsoft also deployed GenAI for US spies.

• It was RSA this week, and without a doubt the whole conference did not disappoint with the amount of “AI powered” products. You can find a summary of the announcement per day here: day 1, day 2, day 3 and day 4.

• For the second year, an AI product won the RSAC Sandbox Innovation competition. This year winner is Reality Defender, which is active in the deepfake detection space. As we discussed here previously, Deepfake is a key and probably the first big threat scenario that AI is transforming. Another example, just this week where the CEO of the biggest ad firm was targeted by a deepfake. I’ll explore this trend in a more detail and in particular the contradiction between AI companies creating new tools knowing very well they will be misused.