AI Is About to Blow Up Cybersecurity Operational Risk

AI is about to super charge ransomware attacks at everyday businesses

You are the business owner, CEO, etc. of a modestly successful, stable business. Why would you think that ransomware attackers or hackers are going to target you. Your business doesn’t have state-level secrets, confidential customer personal information, or anything that is remotely sexy or cool to steal. 

Why us? Won’t our endpoint security catch it? We have backups so why should I care? Here is why:

AI for Cyber Attacks - Autodialer for Criminals to Phone It In

The first documented case of attackers using AI, not just to support an attack, but actually execute an attack. A state-sponsored Chinese group used Anthropic AI’s Claude AI to automate a cyber attack, with very little human input other than a target. The attack targeted 30 global organizations, and succeeded in some of them. What this means is that attackers can scale up the number of attacks easily without relying on skilled attackers to do most of the work.

The AI itself was able to identify vulnerabilities in the target, develop code to exploit the vulnerabilities and actually test that they work against the organization. After that, the AI was able to harvest credentials and steal large amounts of private data from the targets. And finally the AI would compile detailed documentation for the attackers including stolen credentials, which would allow attackers to execute further attacks against the target.

Read the article for yourself: Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign \ Anthropic

Nightmare on Mainstreet

You think to yourself - so what? This is the first attack using agentic AI. No big deal, right? 

Wrong. This is the first documented use of agentic AI to automate cyber attacks. Which means they are coming. The first use of Autodialers for outbound call centers sounded innocuous, but we now are overwhelmed with SPAM calls. When was the last time that you picked up a call from someone who you don’t know?

When the bad guys can turn on the auto-dialer and just hit millions of companies a year to find the ones who aren’t configured correctly, don’t have good security, or attach computers to their network that security doesn't know about, it will get real.

What does “get real” mean? 

• Step one - get access to your core servers and data. 

• Step two - compromise your back-ups. 

• Step three - wait a few weeks to a month for your backup cycle to run its course. 

• Step four - lock you out of your critical business systems. 

• Step five - drop the ransom notes. 

• Step six - watch and wait while you panic and flail around trying to dislodge them. 

• Step seven - force you to pay just enough to be very painful, but not enough that you won’t. 

Meanwhile, the clock on your down operations costs you a ton of missed revenue, possibly customers, etc.

Wait, what about those backups? Let’s say they only infected 3 weeks, but you have a month on hand. Great. How long will it take for your team to go through each backup for 3 weeks to see if you have a clean backup? How much data will you lose if they just infect you again? How much will it cost your business if you lose three weeks of critical operational data?

What do we mean by critical operational data? Email, CRM, ERP, financial data, ordering, procurement, ecommerce, etc. If they can get inside your network, they can figure out where to hurt you the most. They are motivated and the tools are automating the attacks.

My CyberSecurity Team Will Protect Me. Maybe, but You Can’t Defer Critical Business Decisions to Them

The short answer is maybe. 

Last gotcha question, what about our cybersecurity team? We have one inhouse or we outsource to a provider. They know this stuff, right? They get paid to protect us from the bad guys. 

True and most of the time, you will be ok. The problem that they will tell you is that the current tools are pretty good and can catch most of the attacks. But ransomware attacks are just too fast for people to respond in real time, the damage is done in 90 seconds. You need a tool that will stop ransomware attacks automatically, in seconds, without human intervention.

Just because you haven’t been hit or they have caught something before, doesn’t mean that you aren’t vulnerable. 

There are a number of attacks that specialize in evading endpoint security tools. The “B team” attacks tend to get caught, but the “A team” are the ones who you won’t see coming. They are also the ones who are about to implement the AI automation tools that take a few thousand ransomware attacks a year to hundreds of thousands or millions. They can just turn on the autodialer and wait for a hit. The Nigerian prince scam only needed a few victims to make it worth their while sending hundreds of thousands of emails.Your cyber team will have to be right every time with the current tools and best practices.The attackers will just need one mistake, or gap, or vulnerability to exploit.

That is why we are reaching out to CEOs and business owners. Ransomware isn’t just a cybersecurity risk, it is now a business risk.

Making the Business Case for Your Team - Why You Need to Insist on Having Them Explore RansomStop to Prevent Operational Risks

RansomStop is new and different. We don’t try to keep the attackers out, we focus on protecting your mission critical data from being encrypted. We stop the attacks cold so you don’t have to try and recover from an attack. We don’t replace your endpoint security or your other tools, we bolster your protection of your critical assets. It will cost you a bit more in terms of your endpoint security budget (approx. 3-5% more), but given the stakes and the pending escalation in the cybersecurity war, we think it is worth it.

Finally, we are confident that we can get your cybersecurity team comfortable with our technology. We provide protection for the first server free. We can provide third-party simulation software, or even arrange a ransomware lab test if they feel comfortable with handling live ransomware from the wild (think of it like explosives, you don’t want to play around unless you know what you are doing).

Bottom Line For Your Business

Cybersecurity teams can’t make business risk decisions. They can tell you what the risk is, and the business leaders decide what risk is acceptable. That is why we are going directly to you, the business decision maker, you understand the business operational risks and you can make the business decision to spend more if you believe the risks warrant it. We will get your technical team comfortable with the technology, but we find that they need help making the business case. Don’t let the bad guys decide how much operational risk is enough for your business.