The security threat of AI-enabled cyberattacks

The topic of AI-enabled cyberattacks surfaced around five years ago with examples of generative AI models able to automate both spear-phishing attacks and vulnerability discovery. Since then, social engineering and impersonation attacks supported by AI have occurred, causing millions of dollars in financial losses. Current rapid progress in AI research, coupled with the numerous new applications it enables, leads us to believe that AI techniques will soon be used to support more of the steps typically used during cyberattacks. This is the reason why the idea of AI-enabled cyberattacks has recently gained increased attention from both academia and industry, and why we are starting to see more research devoted to the study of how AI might be used to enhance cyberattacks.

This report aims to investigate the security threat of AI-enabled cyberattacks by summarising current knowledge on the topic.