AI Security 'Black October'... "The Era of Hacking for Everyone Has Arrived"

AI Automates Vulnerability Detection and Attacks... "There Is No Time to Respond"

22 million exposed worldwide... Some financial and government services suspended

The paradox of cybersecurity... AI also prevents attacks

[Block Media Reporter Lee Jeong-hwa] "We have entered an era where anyone can penetrate systems using artificial intelligence (AI)."

The so-called 'era of hacking' has arrived, where AI accelerates the speed of hacker attacks while also identifying security vulnerabilities in existing software. Analysts suggest that the global internet security framework is facing a new crisis.

AI is a double-edged sword. It is used for cyber attacks and for defense. The time taken from vulnerability discovery to attack has drastically shortened, leading to the problem of "no time to respond." The security industry views this as a structural change that existing response systems cannot handle.

On the 23rd (local time), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Bloomberg reported that the spread of AI-based hacking tools and the discovery of large-scale software vulnerabilities have pushed the global cybersecurity crisis into a new phase.

Some experts have begun to refer to October as 'Black October' due to the series of attacks and service outages.

AI Automates Vulnerability Discovery to Attack

At the center of this crisis are two critical security vulnerabilities in the widely used open-source programming language PHP. These vulnerabilities had gone undetected for over a decade, but researchers from Wiz, OpenAI, and security firm Calif discovered them using AI. The situation changed rapidly when it was suspected that information about the vulnerabilities was leaked to attackers before it was officially disclosed.

Amazon confirmed that hackers attempted to exploit these vulnerabilities even before their disclosure. In Canada, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, government websites were temporarily suspended as a precaution. Banks and airlines also suspended some services to reduce security risks.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, stated that attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities on their network are observed at hundreds of thousands per minute.

The issue lies in the gap between the speed of vulnerability discovery and the speed of security measures. According to Bloomberg, there are 22 million exposed vulnerable systems on the internet. Jack Hughes, head of digital forensics and incident response at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, explained that more than one-third of these systems use software that cannot be patched immediately.

Replacing or upgrading these systems can take months or more. Chris Hughes, vice president of security strategy at Noma, pointed out that "AI has industrialized vulnerability discovery, but the remediation process is still bottlenecked by humans."

As AI outpaces the speed of security measures in discovering new vulnerabilities, the number of systems exposed to risk continues to accumulate.

Hackers' methods of attack are also changing. According to WSJ, China's open-source hacking tool Artex automates the process of network intrusion using AI. Microsoft reported that attackers in various regions are using this tool to increase the speed of attacks on hundreds of companies.

Earlier this month, a cyber attack using Artex resulted in the leak of data from approximately 68,000 individuals at a South Korean financial institution.

The Russian ransomware organization Aurora is also expanding its use of AI. Initially, they used AI for attack tools and infrastructure development, but later applied it to explore compromised corporate networks and access additional accounts. It is reported that this organization has shifted its model from Anthropic's commercial model to the open-source Kimi model from Moonshot AI.

Colin Cowie, head of threat intelligence at Sophos, explained that their attack speed is faster than that of an average person.

These changes are lowering the barriers to entry for cyber attacks. Not only highly skilled hackers but also relatively less skilled attackers can perform complex tasks using AI.

The Paradox of Cybersecurity... AI Also Prevents Attacks

While AI exacerbates security threats, it also accelerates the development of defense technologies. Bloomberg pointed out that the discovery of vulnerabilities using AI does not necessarily lead to an increase in actual hacking damage.

A representative case is Google's discovery of 401 out of 433 vulnerabilities identified in the Chrome browser in July. There is still no evidence that the list of vulnerabilities actually exploited by the U.S. government has significantly increased. Although there have been numerous attempts to exploit the PHP vulnerabilities, there is no public evidence that large-scale breaches have been successful.

Security experts emphasize the need to distinguish between AI's ability to find vulnerabilities and the actual likelihood of successful attacks. Even if AI finds security vulnerabilities more quickly, additional technology and conditions are required to translate that into actual intrusions.

However, from a defensive perspective, the problem is that the time to respond after vulnerabilities are disclosed has significantly decreased. Jason Clinton, acting Chief Information Security Officer at Anthropic, warned that the current chaos in cybersecurity may worsen for the time being.

He advised security leaders to request support from executives for strengthening basic security systems rather than just the introduction of AI. In the long term, there is also a prospect that AI could reach a stage where security flaws are eliminated in the software development process, which Clinton referred to as 'vulnzero,' where security vulnerabilities virtually disappear.

However, he warned that before that, we must pass through a 'vulnerability tsunami' where the vulnerabilities discovered by AI increase explosively.

This incident shows that the competitive landscape of cybersecurity is changing. In the past, it was important who discovered security vulnerabilities first. Now, the key competitive factor is who can fix or exploit the vulnerabilities found by AI faster.

For companies, the introduction of AI-based security tools, replacing outdated systems, managing access rights, automating security patches, and strengthening incident response systems are expected to be significant challenges.

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