This easy entry for attackers by exploiting valid accounts is one that’s hard to detect, finds out IBM’s 2024 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. In 2023, X-Force (Big Blue’s security services arm) saw attackers increasingly invest in operations to obtain users’ identities like emails, social media and messaging app credentials, banking details and more. Pradeep Vasudevan, country head, Security Software, IBM India & South Asia, discusses highlights from the report with Sudhir Chowdhary and talks about the trends in India’s cybersecurity market.
What are the shifts caused by GenAI and AI in the cybersecurity landscape?
The advent of GenAI is creating new ways to both attack and defend enterprise assets. In terms of attacks, there are two primary vectors to consider. First, adversaries are using AI to attack the organisation. Although AI won’t change cybercrime imminently, it will help scale it. With quicker access to automation and cybercriminals increasingly leveraging large language models as their handyman, more attacks can be executed in less time. For example, this could be in the form of mass distribution of phishing emails or quicker development of malware code.
Second, adversaries are attacking the AI itself. As adversarial AI capabilities mature, AI will help drive more speed, precision, and scale for attackers. Today social engineering and credential theft are more common adversarial use cases for AI.
How do you see the enterprise security landscape evolving in 2024?
We have entered a new era in cybersecurity where adversaries are engineering ransomware-led attacks to cause disruptions more immediately and directly – not only impacting the business itself but various aspects of society. IBM’s 2024 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index points to an emerging global identity crisis as cybercriminals double down on exploiting user identities to compromise enterprises worldwide. About 70% of attacks that X-Force responded to globally were against critical infrastructure organisations, an alarming finding highlighting that cybercriminals are wagering on these high-value targets’ need for uptime to advance their objectives.
How can GenAI strengthen the security posture of Indian businesses?
The most immediate impact that GenAI will have on cybersecurity is in improving productivity gains – both at the human level and tech level. GenAI can empower analysts to do more with less. For example, leveraging GenAI analysts can manage repetitive security tasks such as summarising alerts and log analysis, freeing up their time to tackle strategic problems. GenAI innovations will also improve the efficacy of detection and introduce predictive capabilities to security solutions. Most importantly, GenAI can help security teams detect previously unseen threats faster – foundation models can learn something new, without having been trained on a specific use case.
How is IBM equipping Indian businesses with AI-enabled security?
IBM’s existing matured and trusted AI capabilities help drive speed and accuracy for our security portfolio, decreasing the time deficit that our customers face today in threat detection and response. We’re continuing to invest in enhancing efficacy across our security portfolio spanning software and services. For example, the Adaptive Access technology in IBM Security Verify delivers smarter authentication using an AI-powered risk engine, which assigns a risk score to individual users and adapts the login process accordingly.
