Cybersecurity threats are enhanced by AI Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a tremendous benefit to the workplace. In the wrong hands, however, it poses one of the largest cybersecurity threats to businesses today. Although businesses laud the benefits of this tool that can help with marketing, record-keeping, research, and provide relief from the more mundane tasks that face them each day, these advances come with potentially adverse consequences. With every breakthrough in technology (and AI is a big breakthrough!) cybercriminals hunt for ways to use AI to their advantage, which can spell big trouble for a business. What to be aware of AI tools can retrieve information in a split second. Most businesses store proprietary data in their files, including payroll records (which contain employee Social Security numbers), a company’s financial records, sales figures, and confidential marketing and business strategy plans. In the wrong hands, this information can cause headaches and create liabilities. In the pre-AI world, it might have taken hackers days to mine the information they seek to use. With AI, they can do so in a matter of seconds. AI can make hacking emails and videos look and sound convincing Once a hacker gains access to a network, it’s easy to access LinkedIn or Facebook and create a convincing looking profile. Today’s AI tools have virtually eliminated the awkwardly worded, amateurish messages and profiles of before. AI helps malicious actors create very real-looking emails, videos, voice messages and other forms of communication, including video deepfakes, and voice clones. And this enhanced technology can have devastating consequences on the unsuspecting victims. A hacker can mimic the personality of the CEO, for example and create email “rules” that will send important incoming emails to different folders where the “actual” CEO might not look (such as spam, or deleted folders).