The attacks on emails are increasing and becoming more sophisticated. Some attacks employ QR codes and images to enhance their effectiveness. Others use deep fakes to boost the convincingness of email scams. However, the most popular technology being utilized in email attacks at present is artificial intelligence.

One study shows that around 90 percent of organizations have been hit by AI-fueled email cyberattacks over the past year. There is growing concern over the role of AI in the current threat landscape. It is supposed to be a helpful technology, but it also appears to be helping cybercriminals as they attempt to defeat security systems.

Here’s a look at the yin and yang roles artificial intelligence plays in the context of email security.

Enabling attacks

Email security has been continuously threatened by various attacks, particularly phishing, business email compromise, malicious links, malware, and account takeovers. Even before the advent of advanced AI, there were already serious threats to email use. Now, with the emergence of next-level artificial intelligence, these threats have significantly worsened.

Phishing attacks are enhanced by generative AI, which produces convincing email texts mimicking real communication that approximates the writing style and choice of words of specific individuals. This results in more victims unwittingly succumbing to the attacks and attacks that are more difficult to distinguish from legitimate messages because of the personalized texts that can now be rapidly produced with the help of generative AI.

Business email compromise (BEC) is made more sophisticated by AI through enhanced social engineering wherein various publicly available data about a target organization is analyzed to come up with highly personalized deceptive emails that appear authentic. AI also helps in eluding fraud detection systems by mimicking legitimate communication patterns and user activities.

Malicious links and malware attacks through emails are similarly getting a boost from AI because malware can now be created rapidly with AI. ChatGPT was once discovered to be capable of creating polymorphic or mutating malware that can evade detection systems as disseminated through email and other channels.

Moreover, AI facilitates account takeovers by automating the testing of stolen credentials or through email account takeover (EATO) bots. These bots operate discreetly as they emulate human behavior during login attempts. They avoid detection and CAPTCHA hurdles and prevent lockout mechanisms from getting triggered.

Enhancing defenses

Conversely, artificial intelligence augments email security in a number of ways. It enables smarter ways to filter emails and detect anomalies. It supports user behavior analysis and threat response automation. Additionally, through natural language processing (NLP), it becomes possible to scrutinize emails more thoroughly.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible to analyze email content for potential threats by looking at a range of factors not limited to threat identities or the information supplied by threat intelligence sources. It conducts behavioral analysis to detect suspicious actions by email senders and recipients. Additionally, it enables real-time analysis to address zero-day attacks and vulnerabilities that have not been profiled in threat intelligence sources.

AI can be integrated into various email protection systems including Secure Email Gateways (SEG), Email Data Protection (EDP), and cloud email security solutions like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Artificial intelligence bolsters these security systems by adding advanced threat detection, behavioral analysis, threat intelligence integration, as well as incident response automation.

Organizations appear to be highly receptive to the use of AI for email security. An advanced threat prevention study reveals that 97 percent of organizations that decided to AI email protection solutions did so because their traditional defenses were no longer reliable. Their conventional email protection tools reportedly failed to detect and prevent threats. They believe that AI strengthens email security but they understand that it is not enough to simply have AI security tools in place. They know that they also have to invest in cybersecurity training to maximize the impact of AI security solutions.

Offsetting each other?

Do the yin and yang effects of AI on email security cancel each other out? Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is fair to say that threat actors have the edge when it comes to leveraging AI for their felonious purposes. After all, it is easier to attack than to defend, to destroy than to preserve.

Threat actors do not worry about false positives and negatives when it comes to threat detection. They only focus on sending out as many attacks as they can and double down on what sticks. They can target specific organizations but they can also launch indiscriminate attacks. In contrast, the cybersecurity departments of organizations have to make sure that they are not implementing overly aggressive email filtering and other security mechanisms or they will end up blocking even safe emails or legitimate attachments. It is important to balance security control configurations to avoid inconveniences or dampen efficiency.

Organizations have to exert more effort on security even while leveraging artificial intelligence. They also have to regularly examine their systems to ensure that the detection, prevention, and mitigation functions are working as intended. With threat actors, they can be as extremely aggressive as they want with their attacks and wait if any of their attacks manage to penetrate their targets’ defenses.

The proverbial double-edged sword

Artificial intelligence is a tool. It is neither good nor bad. It serves at the pleasure of its user. To make sure that AI becomes an advantage for email security or cybersecurity in general, it is important to make good use of it by using solutions that integrate artificial intelligence. It is advisable to get used to using tools that incorporate machine learning, natural language processing, behavioral analysis, contextual analysis, and other AI technologies.

Moreover, it is crucial to pair AI with security best practices such as the use of strong unique passwords and multi-factor authentication, deployment of data loss prevention systems, implementation of reputable email filtering systems, and regular or continuous security monitoring. It is also a must to provide adequate cybersecurity training for employees to help them take full advantage of AI security solutions. Again, AI is a tool and it is only as good as how its user uses it.

Image: Unsplash

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• Source: Plato Data Intelligence.