The concept sounds similar to Fetch.ai in that decentralised autonomous AI agents will collaborate in order to achieve common goals.

Cambridge-based Fetch.ai is focusing its efforts on the use of autonomous AI agents for IoT purposes. Naturally, F-Secure is currently seeking to use such agents to further improve the company’s detection and response capabilities.

Matti Aksela, F-Secure’s VP of AI, believes there’s a common misconception that “advanced” AI should mimic human intelligence (known as AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence).

“People’s expectations that ‘advanced’ machine intelligence simply mimics human intelligence is limiting our understanding of what AI can and should do,” says Aksela.

“Instead of building AI to function as though it were human, we can and should be exploring ways to unlock the unique potential of machine intelligence, and how that can augment what people do.”

On average, experts surveyed in 2017 estimate there’s a 50 percent chance AGI will be achieved by 2060. However, there’s a significant difference of opinion based on geography: Asian respondents expect AGI in 30 years, whereas North Americans expect it in 74 years.

The development of autonomous agents, like those pursued by F-Secure and Fetch.ai, should happen at a much faster pace.

F-Secure believes its own project will take several years to reach its full potential but some on-device intelligence mechanisms are already being used for the company’s breach-detection solutions.

While it’s not quite AGI, the individual traits each agent possesses should still provide very advanced capabilities when combined. This is most easily thought of as much like a team of humans working towards a common goal.

Indeed, Project Blackfin takes inspiration from natural phenomena. Swarm intelligence can be observed across nature such as schools of fish or ant colonies.

Rather than create a single centralised AI model to provide instructions, F-Secure says the AI agents would be intelligent and powerful enough to communicate and work together.

“Essentially, you’ll have a colony of fast local AIs adapting to their own environment while working together, instead of one big AI making decisions for everyone,” Aksela explains.

In the case of F-Secure, each of its agents learns from observing their local hosts and networks. These observations are then further augmented by the wider network of agents spanning various industries and organisations.

F-Secure highlights that another benefit of this approach is that it also helps organisations avoid sharing confidential, potentially sensitive information via the cloud or product telemetry.

“Looking beyond detecting breaches and attacks, we can envision these fleets of AI agents monitoring the overall health, efficiency, and usefulness of computer networks, or even systems like power grids or self-driving cars,” says Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure Chief Research Officer.

“But most of all, I think this research can help us see AI as something more than just a threat to our jobs and livelihoods.”

F-Secure plans to publish research, findings, and updates as they occur. More information on Project Blackfin is available here.

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The reality is AI can or will — at least theoretically — at some point exceed humans’ capabilities, which makes it simultaneously exciting and terrifying. As it stands, AI is far from becoming truly ‘artificially intelligent’ and has a long way to go in developing both emotional and logical intelligence beyond data analytics.

Cyber warfare

Cybercriminals are always quick to exploit the latest in technology and AI is no exception. We are already facing a cybercrime pandemic and this will worsen during 2019 as cybercriminals become more sophisticated and organised. Cybercrime is no longer the domain of lone hackers, it has become a huge business with sophisticated operating models and low barrier to entry.

The organisation of cybercrime is now so extensive that wannabe cybercriminals don’t have to be technical experts. AI allows them to use very targeted, automated tools and these may even learn as they go, getting incrementally better at causing harm. It’s becoming more common for malware to contain nasty surprises such as sleep timers that cause it to open minutes or even days after the file has been declared safe, or the ability to detect and respond to mouse movements.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited security resources are likely to be most vulnerable. However, everyone is at risk as AI-powered crypto-viruses and other forms of malware proliferate and are deployed with pinpoint accuracy.

AI warfare, which is effectively industrial or political espionage, or competitive intelligence gathering enacted by computer intelligence, is another rising threat. Even the German parliament has fallen victim to this. The implications for AI warfare between businesses are substantial and 2019 is likely to see many ramp up their cybersecurity arrangements to combat it.

The biggest lesson to be drawn from this is that many traditional security measures are no longer good enough. AI works like the human brain: it learns, it develops, and it grows. No firewall or out-of-the-box virus checker can compete with that. In 2019 we must all move on.

AI for good

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) will become more widespread in 2019, thanks to the superior protection that it offers against AI-based threat.

ATP provides real-time monitoring and protection of the network, which is crucial when threats are increasing, frequently novel, able to infiltrate and spread within a network at lightning speed and incredibly difficult to get rid of. The need is to detect and silo threats before they have any chance to deploy.

Businesses can’t afford to wait for their firewall or virus checker’s next upgrade if the threat is in the here and now. Real-time protection and surveillance is all-important.

Cloud computing, combined with a more virtuous application of AI, gives ATP another edge. Machine learning allows it to understand and thus detect evolving threats. The more data it has (drawn from the business or businesses using it), the better it does. Cloud computing allows this knowledge to be aggregated and shared, creating an ATP that gets better by the hour.

ATP — previously a specialist tool — will move into the mainstream this year.

Sandboxing is a crucial part of ATP, but not all sandboxes are the same. The best now watch activity at the processor instruction level, detecting and blocking malware (including zero-day events) before it is deployed. What’s more, current sandboxes use the power of AI to share information with cloud-based ATP and associated networks, so intelligence is quickly shared, and everybody benefits, almost immediately, from better protection.

As a result, the firewall is more or less obsolete and sandboxes (and wider ATP systems) are rapidly replacing it. That change will accelerate during this year.

Implications of applying AI

For SMBs, the growth of AI and its potential applications for both good and ill demand a move to the cloud.

Local security solutions just don’t cut it any more: businesses desperately need the protection of ATP and sandboxing, but they need cloud because that’s where meaningful volumes of data are aggregated, and protection evolves as a result.

AI cross-checks inputs and events to understand threats more fully. Systems can then make meaningful predictions and mitigate threats effectively in real-time using machine learning. Just like human understanding, the protective system learns and grows.

When this type of machine learning is applied to an ATP system, everybody who is protected by that system benefits from the threats that they — and others — have already dealt with. That learning might have occurred a year, a week, a day or even ten minutes ago: AI can use all of it, fast.

While we aren’t quite at the point of no return or where ATP and sandboxing will replace all other security measures, there’s no doubt in time they will. For now, savvy organisations are using such tools alongside other solutions where required.

The reality is that the majority of SMBs may be cautious of embracing new technological innovations due to the increasing threat of cybercrime. Just one successful malware attack can bring enough financial, reputational and legal damage to terminate a business. But with cybercriminals leveraging AI to evolve their own skills set, businesses of all sizes must also do so to create efficiencies and strengthen network defences with advanced, cloud-based and above all, AI-driven security. It is not all doom and gloom. The future is looking far brighter for business than it is for the cybercriminals.

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Those who follow cybersecurity will likely be unsurprised at the list, but Avast goes into the specifics of each threat.

“This year, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Fast forward thirty years and the threat landscape is exponentially more complex, and the available attack surface is growing faster than it has at any other point in the history of technology,” commented Ondrej Vlcek, President of Consumer at Avast.

“People are acquiring more and varied types of connected devices, meaning every aspect of our lives could be compromised by an attack. Looking ahead to 2019, these trends point to a magnification of threats through these expanding threat surfaces.”

Adversarial AI

AI has primarily been used to aid in general tasks, or in the cybersecurity realm to recognise and defend against evolving threats. That is now changing as AI goes on the offense.

Avast predicts a greater number of ‘DeepAttacks’ in 2019. These new attacks, which began last year, use AI to generate convincing media to evade security controls or fool human users.

One example of a DeepAttack was the creation of a fake video showing former President Obama delivering sentences. The video was created for demonstrative purposes by Buzzfeed without malicious intent.

Some will use DeepAttacks to pretend to be people they’re not, potentially convincing unaware victims to hand over bank details or perform tasks.

As seen with the ‘DeepFakes’ trend of using AI to create adult videos featuring celebrity faces, similar videos could also be used to blackmail or embarrass people from all walks of society.

Evolving IoT threats

The Internet of Things (IoT) has already caused major problems – from botnets such as Mirai, to hackers virtually entering people’s homes.

Manufacturers often continue to prioritise getting new products out-the-door before competitors and security remains a dangerous afterthought.

Avast’s research has found manufacturers also overlook security to keep their costs low. In the coming year, Avast believes we’ll see IoT malware evolve similar to how PC and mobile did.

Fake Mobile Apps

Speaking of mobile threats, Avast foresees a continued growth of fake apps containing malware attempting to make their way onto users’ devices.

With some developers choosing to avoid official app stores, as we saw with Epic Games’ decision with Fortnite on Android, this provides an even greater potential for hackers to infect devices.

That doesn’t mean sticking to official stores guarantees safety. Avast flagged several fake apps which appeared even on the Google Play Store.

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Musk, co-chairman of OpenAI, has long warned of dire consequences for mishandling AI development. OpenAI itself is a non-profit research company that aims to champion promoting and developing friendly AI in a way to benefit humanity.

As with any major technology advancement, however, there will undoubtedly be those which aim to weaponise it and to do so before rivals. Based on Putin’s comments to Russia-based publication RT, it sounds as if the nation is among them.

“Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,” said Putin, in a report from RT. “It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

Musk tweeted his brief reaction to the news:

It begins … https://t.co/mbjw5hWC5J

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2017

Further responses to his tweet highlighted the concern about AI weapon systems. In particular, an AI which may decide a preemptive strike is the best option to prevent a threat from developing. The lack of human involvement in the decision also enables the blame to be mitigated.

Last week, AI News reported that China is catching up to the U.S. in artificial intelligence. Part of this rapid development is due to a significant increase in government support of core AI programs. China will increase spending to $22 billion in the next few years, with plans to spend nearly $60 billion per year by 2025.

Musk has also voiced concerns about this international competition for AI superiority:

China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2017

These recent developments further highlight the pressing need for regulations and open dialogue on AI development to ensure it benefits humanity rather than poses a threat.

See more: Experts believe AI will be weaponised in the next 12 months

Are you concerned about AI posing a threat? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Cylance posted the results of their survey of Black Hat USA 2017 attendees yesterday, and 62 percent of the infosec experts believe cyberattacks will become far more advanced over the course of the next year due to artificial intelligence.

Interestingly, 32 percent said there wasn’t a chance of AI being used for attacks in the next 12 months. The remaining six percent were uncertain.

Following an increasing pace of high-profile and devastating cyberattacks in recent years, law enforcement agencies have been cracking down on dark web marketplaces where strains of malware are often sold. Just last month, two dark web marketplaces known as AlphaBay and Hansa were seized following an international operation between Europol, the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Dutch National Police.

Despite these closures, 80 percent of the surveyed cybersecurity experts believe it will not slow down cyberattacks. 7 percent said they were uncertain which leaves just 13 percent believing it will have an impact.

With regards to whom poses the biggest cybersecurity threat to the United States, Russia came out number one (34%) which is perhaps no surprise considering the ongoing investigations into allegations of the nation’s involvement in the U.S presidential elections. This was closely followed by organised cybercriminals (33%), then China (20%), North Korea (11%), and Iran (2%).

On a more positive note, while AI poses a threat to cybersecurity, it’s also improving defense and the ability to be more proactive when attacks occur to limit the potential damage.

“Based on our findings, it is clear that infosec professionals are worried about a mix of advanced threats and negligence on the part of their organizations, with little consensus with regards to which groups (nation-states or general cybercriminals) pose the biggest threat to our security,” wrote the Cyclance team in a blog post. “As such, a combination of advanced defensive solutions and general education initiatives is needed, in order to ensure we begin moving towards a more secure future.”

Are you concerned about AI being weaponised? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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