Artificial intelligence technology has become a disruptive force in our daily lives. Companies and individuals around the world spent $328.34 billion on AI last year. In some sectors, AI has created stellar new opportunities and frustrating challenges. The cybersecurity sector is among them.
AI Creates Both Promising Defenses and Horrifying Threats in the Cybersecurity Sector
Malware threats have increased 86% over the past year. Cybersecurity professionals will need to employ AI technology to stop them. Unfortunately, AI is also part of the problem driving this worrisome trend.
One of the downsides of AI technology is that it has led to a proliferation of dangerous new malware applications. Stu Sjouwerman of the Forbes Technology Council discussed this concern in his article Malicious AI Isn’t A Distant Reality Anymore. He pointed out that a college student was able to create a nihlistic application with Open AI and GPT-3 to create over 15,000 hateful messages in the span of an hour. More insidious hackers can use AI to create even more vile forms of malware.
An article from VentureBeat showed that AI can be both a tool for good or evil in the cybersecurity space. The article cited a report by Emsisoft showing that AI has led to an increase in ransomware attacks against entire cities. AI-driven malware has enabled hackers to disrupt 911 systems, shut down school resources and conduct all kinds of other heinous assaults against services people depend on.
If cybersecurity experts were unable to adapt to the growth of AI-powered malware threats, then cyberattacks would be exponentially more common and vicious. Fortunately, cybersecurity professionals are finding new ways to employ AI themselves to mitigate the growing threat of malware.
What Can Cybersecurity Experts Do as AI-Powered Malware Becomes More Prevalent?
You must prepare for the growing threats that malware poses as hackers use it more dangerously than ever. But what steps can you take to fight this looming threat?
In 2022, everyone recognizes the importance of using antivirus software. But sometimes, you get a computer virus or malware infection despite your best efforts. Perhaps you accidentally downloaded a malicious app or fell for an email phishing scam. No matter how your system got infected, you need to clean it up.
Of course, new malware applications are reliant on AI algorithms that help make evade conventional antivirus applications. The good news is that new cybersecurity tools use machine learning to detect these malicious applications. Webroot, Panda Dome and BullGuard are anti-malware programs that use machine learning to detect threats and stop them in real time.
Fortunately, getting infected by a computer virus or malware doesn’t have to mean losing permanent access to your machine. Hopefully, you’ve backed up all your important files, just in case you need to completely wipe your machine. But you can probably get rid of the virus or malware with software tools, and no need to wipe your hard drive or reset for a fresh start.
Make Sure Your Antivirus Is Up to Date with Newer AI Algorithms
The very first thing you should do if you think you’ve got a computer virus is make sure your antivirus software is up to date. Newer applications have advanced AI algorithms that can help detect malware more easily. Often, people get malware infections because they haven’t updated their antivirus program, and the program’s threat definitions are out of date as a result. By always using the latest version of your computer virus protection software and installing updates as they become available, you can avoid most malware infections.
Disconnect Your Machine from the Network
Even the most vicious AI-driven applications can’t harm your computer if it is offline. Computer viruses and malware are self-propagating, so they can spread to other machines and devices on your network. As soon as you realize your machine has been infected with a virus, disconnect it from the internet. Disable wifi and Bluetooth and unplug the Ethernet connection. You might even go so far as to unplug the router. Once you’re sure your machine is no longer online – and you should check to make sure it’s not connected to a neighboring signal – you can start the cleanup process.
Run a Scan with Malware Detection Tools that Use Machine Learning
Most of the time, all you’ll need to do to take care of a computer virus is disconnect from the internet and run a manual scan of your antivirus program. You should use a recent program that uses machine learning to detect harmful applications. Just open up the program and manually start the scan. A manual scan can take a while, so be prepared to wait. Once the scan is finished, choose whether you want the infected files to be deleted or quarantined.
Enter Safe Mode for a Rescan
Sometimes, a simple antivirus scan won’t be enough to remove a malware infection – especially for remote access Trojans (RATs), rootkits, and other especially tenacious malware. If you’ve run a normal manual scan but your system still seems infected, reboot in Safe Mode. Use Disk Cleanup to remove any temporary files from your hard drive – these can harbor malicious code. Use a second-opinion malware scanner like Malwarebytes or Norton Power Eraser to dig out the most obstinate malware. Try rebooting the system in normal mode and see if the infection is cleared up.
Perform a Boot-Time Scan
If you’re still having problems with your malware infection after running second-opinion software in Safe Mode, you can perform a boot-time scan. A boot-time scan is meant to take place during boot-up, and should allow your antivirus program to remove any system malware before your programs and operating system have a chance to boot up. Look for the boot-time scan option in your antivirus program’s settings or scans tab. You can ask the software to fix, delete, or quarantine any malware it finds.
Restore Your System
If you’re still having malware problems, you may need to use the System Restore feature to reset your system back to a restore point that predates the malware infection. You may lose any files that were created since your last restore point, but if you’ve backed up your files to the cloud or to an external storage device, you should be able to recover them.
Wipe Your Hard Drive
If restoring your system to a previous point doesn’t clean up your malware infection, you’ll have to entirely wipe and reformat your hard drive and reinstall your operating system. This is the truly nuclear option, as it will erase all of your files and data, and you won’t be able to get them back unless you have them backed up. Wiping your hard drive will restore your computer to its factory settings.
You can fall victim to a malware infection even if you’re careful about what you download and use a comprehensive antivirus program. Even if everything is up to date, new computer viruses come out all the time. You need to know what to do if you get infected, so you can deal with it and get on with your life.
Use AI to Fight the Growing Threat of Malware
Both black-hat and white-hat hackers are using AI technology to their advantage. You will need to find ways to employ it to your advantage to stop cyberattacks.
Photo 123144823 Daniil Peshkov | Dreamstime.com
