AI, or artificial intelligence, can be a helpful tool, but it comes with some serious security hazards you should be aware of.
AI makes phishing more dangerous
One of the dangers of AI is that it can be used by cybercriminals to create highly effective phishing emails.
- AI can reduce spelling and grammatical errors – things often used to identify phishing emails.
- AI can copy the style and tone of leaders in an organization, helping cybercriminals create well-written, believable, professional emails in seconds.
- AI can also sort through a vast amount of data relevant to hackers, using things like your recent vacation, your coworkers’ names and various personal details to create a convincing, targeted message quickly and easily.
- Finally, AI can learn from successes and failures, meaning it gradually gets better at bypassing spam filters.
What still works?
Thankfully, there are still some reliable tips to stay safe in an era of AI-aided phishing attempts. Keep the following advice in mind when opening emails.
- Be wary of any urgent requests. Caution is your greatest resource. If you feel pressured to act quickly based an email, take a moment and reevaluate to ensure what you’re doing is safe.
- Avoid links and attachments. Unless you’re explicitly expecting an email with a link or attachment, double check before clicking or opening anything. You can hover your mouse pointer over a link to see where it will take you.
- Beware requests for sensitive information. Any time you’re prompted to send sensitive information via email, you should be especially cautious and take steps to verify the sender though other channels before sending anything.
- Report, report, report. If you have ANY suspicions about an email, even if you can’t pin down what seems off, report it to IT via the Phish Alert button. Deleting a phishing email isn’t enough. If you received it, someone else might have received it too – and they might fall for it. Reporting phishes protects the whole organization. Don’t just delete; alert. If it’s a valid email, it will be confirmed and returned to your inbox. If it’s not, you could have saved the company from a major cybersecurity hazard that could put team members – and even patient lives – at risk.
Be safe when using AI
While AI is a dangerous tool in the hands of criminals, it can be a major boon to you as a user. But there are precautions that need to be taken when interacting with AI systems such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Apple Intelligence or Galaxy AI.
- Sometimes, AI is just wrong. AI can randomly, and frequently, generate what are called hallucinations – completely false or misleading answers to questions or requests. Always double-check any important AI-generated information against reliable sources before using it.
- NEVER enter sensitive information into an AI system, especially if it is a free AI tool. These “free” AI tools likely send all the data to a public data lake and could result in a disclosure of protected data. AI saves everything entered into it to learn from, and sometimes it spits information back out as answers to other people.
Remember:
- Don’t fall for a well-written AI-powered phishing email. Check for the signs: urgency, links, sensitive information.
- When in doubt, report! Don’t just delete.
- Don’t take information from AI at face value. Always fact-check!
- Never put sensitive information into an AI system; if you do this by mistake, let IT know immediately, so they can mitigate the leak.
For more information about how to stay safe with AI systems, explore the following links:
