How to Outrun Advances in Cybercrime
Week Three: How to Outrun Advances in Cybercrime
Cyber security attack technologies and techniques are constantly evolving, which can lead to new cyber security threats. This week, we'll explore how these advancements can impact the Laurier community and provide guidance on how you can stay prepared. Remember to test your knowledge by submitting the quiz at the end of this newsletter for a chance to win a prize!
Conversational AI
Conversational AI services such as ChatGPT are currently a hot topic, and cybercriminals have realized that they can capitalize on this technology to make their phishing attacks more believable.
Poorly written, easily recognizable phishing messages are becoming less common – cybercriminals are now using AI chatbots to impersonate managers, colleagues, friends, and family. Although conversational AI has helped to improve the grammar and punctuation in phishing messages, threat actors still continue to use familiar phishing techniques (e.g., claiming the request is urgent, suspicious sender email addresses, attachments, links).
AI chatbots also present increased privacy risks. When using AI chatbots, avoid publicly sharing your personal information online unless absolutely necessary – this information can be found and reused by cybercriminals.
Voice Synthesis
Cybercriminals have also leveraged AI voice synthesis to create realistic vishing (voice phishing) calls and extortion attempts. Voice samples found online can be used by cybercriminals to generate realistic-sounding voice clips of someone's voice through AI models. These messages often imitate a friend or loved one, claiming to be in danger and requesting that you send them money to help them out.
Again, these messages emphasize urgency and may use personal information previously shared publicly by the victim in an attempt to make the scam more believable. The cybercriminal may also try to isolate you by asking you not to share the details of the call with anyone else.
If you’re in doubt about whether a voice call is legitimate, hang up and contact the person back through their known phone number or email.
Voicemail Notification Abuse and Phishing
The shift away from traditional landline phones to technologies such as Teams Phone allows cybercriminals to imitate services such as voicemail notification emails in their phishing attempts.
Legitimate Teams voicemail notifications are shown as being sent from a phone number and include a .mp3 attachment containing the voice message. The subject line uses the word “Voice Mail” followed by the length of the message (e.g. “1 Minute 10 Seconds”).
Messages that don’t match this format are likely phishing attempts. If you have any doubts about whether a voicemail message is legitimate, forward it to reportspam@wlu.ca for investigation.
Quantum Computing
Quantum computers, which are based on quantum physics rather than traditional electronics, could significantly advance cybercriminals' ability to crack encrypted communications, including those used for financial transactions and private messages.
While the quantum computers of today aren’t able to crack our current encryption standards yet, tech companies are already preparing to adopt stronger, quantum-resistant cryptography into their software in preparation for potentially increased quantum computing capabilities. Using up-to-date software and operating systems that support modern methods of encryption will help you stay ahead of this future threat.
Although these technological advances can present added risk to our community, the basic practices and methods we use to protect ourselves stay the same:
- Pay attention to the tried-and-tested safety measures. Avoid putting your personal information online unless absolutely necessary, put cyber security tips into practice whenever possible, and report suspicious messages when in doubt.
- Be aware of the techniques cybercriminals use. This will help you keep your data secure in an ever-evolving cyber security landscape.
How cyber fit are you? Test your knowledge and win a prize!
Every week, we will be giving away a Laurier water bottle and magnet, courtesy of The Hawk Shop. Complete the weekly quiz for a chance to win!
But wait, there's more – we're also giving away an iPhone 11! Complete all of our weekly quizzes for a chance to win an iPhone 11. The winner will be drawn at the end of the month.
Read our other Cyber Security Awareness Month newsletters: