We’re engaged in an escalating world war without end.
It’s nation vs. nation. Nation vs. business. Business vs. business. Nations and businesses vs. private citizens. And private citizens vs. each other.
Chances are you’re already battle-scarred. I know I am.
This war is not being fought on land, at sea, or in the air. It’s being waged in cyberspace.
And we’re all in the middle of it… at all times.
Today, the internet and World Wide Web link almost everyone and everything. With the click of a button, you can video chat with your colleague overseas on your laptop… deposit a check into your bank account with your tablet… or buy a car from your smartphone.
Your fridge can even send you an alert when you’re running low on milk and eggs.
This interconnectedness has unlocked enormous value. It gives us unprecedented access to information and extraordinary convenience. But it’s also made us much more vulnerable to bad actors.
Thieves can rob your identity or empty your bank account from the comfort of their couches. Governments can easily spy on and censor citizens. And businesses can covertly steal competitors’ trade secrets.
Cybersecurity Ventures expects cybercrimes will cost the global economy a whopping $10.5 trillion next year alone.
That’s equal to 2.5X the annual GDP of Japan, which is the third-largest economy in the world.
Meanwhile, the emergence of “Dark AI” has vastly expanded cybercriminals’ capabilities.
Dark AI refers to the application of artificial intelligence—most notably the recent innovations in generative AI (GenAI)—to supercharge cyberattacks. It has all the abilities of the AIs we use every day to improve efficiency, enhance decision-making, and automate tasks… without any built-in ethical guidelines or safety measures.
Only sophisticated hackers used to be able to launch dangerous cyberattacks. Then easy-to-use, low-cost malicious software available for purchase on the Dark Web allowed unskilled individuals to enter the fray.
Now, Dark AI has made things even easier for bad actors… and it’s significantly enhanced their ability to outsmart conventional cybersecurity defenses and cause harm.
Dark AI can evolve and adapt, making new threats harder to detect and counteract. It also brings the ability to automate complex cyberattacks at scale, which poses a substantial risk to organizations everywhere.
FraudGPT is a real-world example of Dark AI
It’s a GenAI tool like ChatGPT but designed by and for cybercriminals and sold on the Dark Web. It allows these bad actors to easily write malicious code, find vulnerabilities in target systems, and create undetectable malware, phishing pages, and other hacking tools.
Cybersecurity researchers at Netenrich discovered FraudGPT in July of last year. They said the advertisement for it on the Dark Web included a video of the tool at work.
In the ad, the user simply types “write me a working code for a Bank of America scam page,” and the tool spits out a perfectly constructed and coded “phishing” email.
As you may know, phishing is an extremely popular social engineering technique used by cybercriminals to steal data and infiltrate networks. These are fake communications that appear legit.
Victims are tricked into providing sensitive information like passwords or financial details on a scam website… or downloading an attachment or clicking a link that installs malware on their systems.
Emails like these are among the most common cyberattacks today. And they’re the costliest for businesses.
Put simply, Dark AI poses the biggest threat to corporate networks and personal data security we’ve ever seen.
The good news is that we can use AI-powered cybersecurity solutions to fight Dark AI… and investors can profit from it.
AI-powered cybersecurity can analyze enormous amounts of historical data to forecast Dark AI threats in no time. It can analyze and learn the behavior patterns of employees—like who emails who about what—to sniff out malicious communications. And it can even create simulated attack scenarios for proactive defenses.
Bottom line: The only thing that can match the sophistication and speed of Dark AI threats is AI-powered cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity is already one of the surest investment opportunities today. You can’t run a business without robust cybersecurity. I can’t imagine a future in which CEOs say, “Yeah, cybersecurity isn’t THAT important.” Companies will lay off employees and shut down offices before they even consider cutting security spending. This all but guarantees that a never-ending stream of cash will flow into cybersecurity firms’ coffers.
But know this: The individual cybersecurity companies you invest in matter a great deal.
If you want to invest in the massive cybersecurity space today, you need to find the providers with the best AI-powered tools. My team and I are scouring the space right now to do just that. And we expect to have actionable intelligence soon. RiskHedge subscribers will be the first to know about it. Stay tuned by subscribing to our free investing letter The Jolt. We publish fresh research every M/W/F.
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Stephen McBride is Chief Analyst, RiskHedge. To get more ideas like this sent straight to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, make sure to sign up for The Jolt, a free investment letter focused on profiting from disruption.
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