Crypto is in ‘arms race’ against AI-powered scams: Quantstamp co-founder
With the field of artificial intelligence evolving at near breakneck speed, scammers now have access to tools that can help them execute highly sophisticated attacks en masse, warns the co-founder of Web3 security firm Quantstamp.
Speaking to Cointelegraph at Korea Blockchain Week, Quantstamp's Richard Ma explained that while social engineering attacks have been around for some time, AI is helping hackers become “a lot more convincing” and increase the success rate of their attacks.
To illustrate what the new generation of AI-powered attacks look like, Ma recalled what happened to one of Quantstamp’s clients, where an attacker pretended to be the CTO of the targeted firm.
“He began messaging one of the other engineers in the company, saying ‘hey, we have this emergency, here's what's going on’ and engaging them in a bunch of conversations before asking them for anything,” said Ma.
Apparently there’s an increase in person specific targeted scams, rather than just playing numbers game… using AI and ChatGPT scammers can write code fast, and new tech means it’s more profitable for attackers until software is created to fight back.
The elderly are the targets
Ma said these added steps add a layer of complexity to attacks that make the possibility of someone handing over important information a lot more likely.
Ultimately, Ma said the most existential threat introduced by sophisticated AI is the sheer scale at which these types of attacks can be executed.
By leveraging automated AI systems, attackers could be spinning up social engineering attacks and other advanced scams across thousands of different organizations with very little in the way of human involvement.
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