Cybercriminals employ artificial intelligence (AI) to create complex email threats like phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks, while modern email security systems use AI to counter these attacks, according to Perception Point and Osterman Research. The new study reveals a substantial shift in the perception of AI’s role in email security. Cybercriminals have shown rapid adoption of AI tools to their favor with 91.1% of organizations reporting that they have already encountered email attacks that have been enhanced by AI, and 84.3% expecting that AI will continue to be utilized to circumvent existing security systems. Consequently, AI-enabled protections are more essential than ever. The percentage of respondents ranking AI as “extremely important” to their email defenses has increased by more than 4x over the past 12 months. Virtually all organizations expect AI to be moderately or extremely important to their email defenses. The growing perception of AI-enabled threats aligns with the increasing awareness of large language models (LLM) and generative AI services, such as ChatGPT, that have made headlines in the past year. Almost 4 out of 5 organizations rate addressing email security risks as a top three priority for their organization relative to all other security and risk initiatives.
Full story : Cybercriminals turn to AI to bypass modern email security measures.
