UAE: Cybersecurity experts warn of AI being used in cybercrimes

Cybersecurity experts have warned that cloud attacks are on the rise and attackers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to harm supply chain networks and IT infrastructures of the public and private sectors.

While speaking during the 6th CSIS Cybersecurity Innovation Series Conference in Dubai on Tuesday, Ashraf Esmat Khalil, senior solution architect, Huawei Middle East & Central Asia, said there has been a 50 per cent increase in cloud-based cyberattacks.

“Now cloud attackers have sophisticated tools to hide. More attacks are happening on the cloud because more businesses are moving there. Some of the attackers are using supply chains to launch attacks. They’re using AI to make traffic look like legitimate traffic,” he said.

Khalil advised people to have multiple layers of security and stressed on zero trust, a security model based on maintaining strict access controls, and not trusting anyone by default.

“Entities need to have self-assessment and end-to-end security. We need to take measures to mitigate the risks. We have to use the right capabilities and services of the best cybersecurity service providers,” he said during the panel discussion on “Key strategies for protecting critical resources and ensuring cyber-defence in the cloud.”

Mohamed Al Maleki, senior information security specialist, Federal Tax Authority, called for conducting a proper critical assessment of technologies deployed by the companies.

“We need to keep up with attackers, they now use AI to attack. AI is integrated with attack tools so we need to understand AI,” he said.

Adel Alhosani, CISO and Information security senior manager, Dubai Customs, said as attackers are moving towards clouds, the best way to deal with this is collaboration.

“We are seeing a lot of attacks from the cloud. We can’t meet [these] huge amount of attacks, and Dubai Cybersecurity Strategy’s one agenda is collaboration. One entity can be strong in one aspect and the other in another aspect. By collaborating, we can keep up with cyber threats,” he said, stressing that companies should use built-in security against cyber threats.

Emad Haffar, head of presales, Kaspersky, warned that the risk will change with time and people will get to see different ways of abusing technologies.

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