5 Emerging AI Threats Australian Cyber Pros Must Watch in 2025

Australian cybersecurity professionals can count on menace actors to take advantage of synthetic intelligence to diversify ways and scale the amount of cyberattacks concentrating on organisations in 2025, in response to safety tech agency Infoblox.

Final yr, cyber groups in APAC witnessed the primary indicators of AI getting used to execute crimes like monetary fraud, whereas some have linked AI to a DDoS assault within the monetary providers sector in Australia.

This yr, Australia’s cyber defenders can count on AI for use for a brand new breed of cyber assaults:

• AI cloning: AI could possibly be used to create artificial audio voices to commit monetary fraud.
• AI deepfakes: Convincing pretend movies may lure victims to click on or present their particulars.
• AI-powered chatbots: AI chatbots may turn into a part of complicated phishing campaigns.
• AI-enhanced malware: Criminals may use LLMs to spit out remixed malware code.
• Jailbreaking AI: Menace actors will use “darkish” AI fashions with out safeguards.

Infoblox’s Bart Lenaerts-Bergmans instructed Australian defenders on a webinar that they will count on a rise within the frequency and class of assaults as a result of extra actors have entry to AI instruments and methods.

1. AI for cloning

Adversaries can use generative AI instruments to create artificial audio content material that sounds real looking. The cloning course of, which will be completed shortly, leverages information accessible within the public area, reminiscent of an audio interview, to coach an AI mannequin and generate a cloned voice.

SEE: Australian authorities proposes obligatory guardrails for AI

Lenaerts-Bergmans mentioned cloned voices can exhibit solely minor variations in intonation or pacing in comparison with the unique voice. Adversaries can mix cloned voices with different ways, reminiscent of spoofed electronic mail domains, to look official and facilitate monetary fraud.

2. AI deepfakes

Criminals can use AI to create real looking deepfake movies of high-profile people, which they will use to lure victims into cryptocurrency scams or different malicious actions. The artificial content material can be utilized to extra successfully social engineer and defraud victims.

Infoblox referenced deepfake movies of Elon Musk uploaded to YouTube accounts with tens of millions of subscribers. Utilizing QR codes, many viewers have been directed to malicious crypto websites and scams. It took 12 hours for YouTube to take away the movies.

3. AI-powered chatbots

Adversaries have begun utilizing automated conversational brokers, or AI chatbots, to construct belief with victims and finally rip-off them. The method mimics how an enterprise could use AI to mix human-driven interplay with the AI chatbot to interact and “convert” an individual.

One instance of crypto fraud entails attackers utilizing SMS to construct relationships earlier than incorporating AI chatbot parts to advance their scheme and acquire entry to a crypto pockets. Infoblox famous that warning indicators of those scams embody suspicious telephone numbers and poorly designed language fashions that repeat solutions or use inconsistent language.

4. AI-enhanced malware

Criminals can now use LLMs to routinely rewrite and mutate current malware to bypass safety controls, making it harder for defenders to detect and mitigate. This may happen a number of instances till the code achieves a unfavorable detection rating.

SEE: The alarming state of Australian information breaches in 2024

For instance, a JavaScript framework utilized in drive-by obtain assaults could possibly be fed to an LLM. This can be utilized to switch the code by renaming variables, inserting code, or eradicating areas to bypass typical safety detection measures.

5. Jailbreaking AI

Criminals are bypassing safeguards of conventional LLMs like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to generate malicious content material at will. Known as “jailbroken” AI fashions, they already embody the likes of FraudGPT, WormGPT, and DarkBERT, which haven’t any in-built authorized or moral guardrails.

Lenaerts-Bergmans defined that cybercriminals can use these AI fashions to generate malicious content material on demand, reminiscent of creating phishing pages or emails that mimic official providers. Some can be found on the darkish net for simply $100 monthly.

Count on detection and response capabilities to turn into much less efficient

Lenaerts-Bergmans mentioned AI threats could end in safety groups having intelligence gaps, the place current tactical indicators like file hashes could turn into utterly ephemeral.

He mentioned “detection and response capabilities will drop in effectiveness” as AI instruments are adopted.

Infoblox mentioned detecting criminals on the DNS stage permits cyber groups to assemble intelligence earlier within the cybercriminal’s workflow, probably stopping threats earlier than they escalate to an energetic assault.