How Hackers Use AI to Bypass Cyber Security

AI is changing the way cyber attacks happen. Attackers can now use it to create more convincing phishing attempts, imitate real people and find new ways to manipulate the security controls businesses rely on every day.

At our enable event earlier this year, Sasha Roshan, Senior Sales Engineer EMEA at Huntress, demonstrated some of the techniques attackers are already using and explained why businesses need to think beyond simply stopping known malicious files:

How Is AI Changing Cyber Attacks?

AI does not suddenly make every attacker an expert hacker.

What it can do is make certain parts of an attack quicker, easier and much more convincing.

Phishing messages can be written in seconds. Voice cloning can make an impersonation attempt sound far more believable. Attackers can also use automation to adapt what they are doing based on the environment they encounter.

That creates a difficult challenge for businesses.

Traditional cyber security controls are still important, but attackers increasingly look for ways around them rather than trying to break through them directly.

Sometimes that means targeting the person instead of the technology.

Sometimes it means stealing a genuine user session or identity so activity appears legitimate.

And increasingly, it means changing behaviour quickly enough to make traditional methods of identifying known threats less effective.

Why Traditional Cyber Security Still Matters

None of this means antivirus, firewalls, multi-factor authentication or good Microsoft 365 security settings are no longer useful.

They remain an important part of protecting a business.

The problem comes when a business assumes that having those controls in place means nothing else can get through.

Modern cyber security needs multiple layers.

Preventative security should make it difficult for an attacker to gain access in the first place, while monitoring and detection give you another opportunity to identify suspicious activity if something does get through.

Your employees are another important part of that protection.

Regular cyber security awareness and phishing training can help people recognise increasingly convincing attacks and, importantly, know what to do when something does not feel right.

What Should Businesses Be Thinking About Now?

The question is no longer simply:

“Do we have cyber security?”

A better question is:

“Would we know if somebody found a way around it?”

Businesses should be thinking about protection across several different areas:

Your People

Employees need regular, relevant training that reflects the types of phishing, impersonation and social engineering attacks they are actually likely to see.

Your Identities

Microsoft 365 accounts and other business identities need protection and monitoring because attackers increasingly try to operate using legitimate credentials rather than obviously malicious access.

Your Devices

Endpoints such as laptops and desktops need more than traditional antivirus alone. Modern detection can look for unusual behaviour that may indicate something suspicious is happening.

Your Response

Even with strong preventative controls, businesses need to know what happens if an attacker does get through.

Who spots it? Who investigates it? How quickly can the threat be contained?

How The HBP Group Helps Businesses Strengthen Their Cyber Security

Cyber security should not be treated as a collection of individual products that are installed once and forgotten about.

The threat landscape changes, businesses change and the way employees use technology changes with them.

Our managed cyber security services bring together prevention, monitoring, detection and ongoing security improvement to help businesses understand their current position and continually strengthen their protection.

If you want to understand more about how we approach cyber security and the areas businesses should be protecting, visit:

Explore our Cyber Security Services →

Additional Protection With elevate security

For businesses looking to add further layers of protection, we have also developed elevate security.

elevate security is designed to strengthen the cyber security already in place rather than replace it.

It brings together areas including phishing simulation and awareness training, security baseline reviews, Microsoft 365 identity monitoring, endpoint detection and response, and support if an incident does occur.

The aim is simple: make attacks harder to carry out, improve the chances of spotting suspicious behaviour quickly and make sure there is a plan if something gets through.

Explore elevate security →

Cyber Security Needs To Keep Moving

The important takeaway from Sasha's session is not that AI has suddenly made businesses impossible to protect.

It is that attackers continue to change how they operate.

The security that protected a business yesterday still matters, but it needs to continue evolving alongside the threats it is designed to stop.

If Sasha's demonstration has made you question how your own business would identify or respond to a modern cyber attack, speak to our team and we can talk through what you currently have in place and where there may be opportunities to strengthen it.