The euphoria surrounding ChatGPT in early 2023 did not bypass the world of cybersecurity. One thing is clear: The ability to calculate large amounts of data and correlations is paving new paths for cybercriminals and protection solution providers.
Dictatorships employ cyber armies that conduct AI-based cyberattacks in large quantity to ostensibly attack critical infrastructure in NATO countries. Refined DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks have the potential to completely collapse IT systems thanks to advancing AI modernization. Banks that don’t pay out money, disrupted energy supplies or paralyzed airports represent an extremely attractive target for globally active hackers. Unsettling Western societies with AI-optimized DDoS attacks thus currently remains one of the priorities of cybercriminals. What does this mean in detail for those affected and how can they protect themselves?
Intelligent protection solutions can learn through AI
AI does not yet possess technological skills that could initiate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Nevertheless, AI calculates and works many times faster. This means that, especially when it comes to data and correlation analyses, artificial intelligences can provide correlations and conclusions extremely quickly.
Prior to targeted and highly professional DDoS attacks, initial victim analyses help to identify gateways and vulnerabilities. Companies, platforms and operators of e.g. critical infrastructures with global orientation, are exposed to a permanent attack risk here.
Important in this process are so-called OSINT data, i.e. publicly accessible sources (IP networks, cloud services used, host names, etc.), which can be used to refine digital victim profiles.
Once the gateways have been verified, trial-and-error is used to test the effectiveness of individual attacks against the identified vulnerabilities.
DDoS attacks have already experienced a significant modernization push in recent years. The critical payload that can completely collapse systems is being reached faster and faster. In 2022, this value was reached after an average of just 55 seconds (2021: 184 seconds). Combined with AI, DDoS is becoming an ever-growing threat to the network or application layer.
Why the use of AI makes sense in terms of IT security
But what can artificial intelligence do to ensure greater security online?
Until now, firewalls or load balancers were the means of choice to fend off DDoS attacks. However, both systems can be overloaded by flooding attacks.
Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, can filter, analyze and even block traffic. They prevent a DDoS attack from reaching a company’s IT systems in the first place. You can find a lot of texts about DDOS attacks at Link11, many of which are written by Karsten Desler, if you need to learn more on the topic. Consistent defense against DDoS attacks is therefore only possible with cloud-based solutions. These support methods such as fingerprinting, AI analyses or the examination of data streams.
Especially the early detection and filtering of attack patterns from the huge amount of data and information becomes more realistic with the help of predictive analytics and machine learning (ML).
Rapid response by AI to events is an essential aspect of attack defense. Machine learning analyzes past events and is thus able to automate response processes and thus reducing the time required for remediation.
Intelligent solutions do not only use statistical indicators such as IP addresses and domains, but also statistics or correlation- and time-based detection. With such algorithmic approaches, previous security solutions develop a much more efficient effect. Protection mechanisms become more agile and resilient. In addition to the shortest possible time-to-mitigate, in which attacks are neutralized, AI will therefore become the benchmark for innovative security approaches in the long term.
