The Latest AI Vulnerabilities Exposed - What it Means for Your Business

AI is here to stay — it can be your most formidable enemy or an incredibly useful friend.

Hackers and businesses alike are seizing whatever competitive edge this technology can offer.

As a business owner, you may worry about how these advancements in AI technology will affect your company.

You’d probably love to know how you can use it too, right?

In this article, we talk about the major vulnerabilities we’ve already seen in AI technology and how you can use it to propel your business.

The 4 latest vulnerabilities discovered in AI

→ #1. AI tools are easy to manipulate

With new software comes creative ways to steal or sabotage business data. Hackers can no longer rely on old tricks when faced with new sophisticated deep learning systems.

There are a few new ways that cybercriminals are corrupting AI tools:

• Model evasion: The most common attack on machine learning models feeds your AI an “adversarial example”, tainting your results.
• Membership interference: Hackers will try to discover how your AI works or the data it uses. Once inside, your AI tool can be turned against you.
• Data poisoning: Poisoning happens when intentionally malicious data is injected into an AI dataset. This way, your software can be trained to ignore suspicious activity in the future.

Altered datasets don’t sound that bad until a rival business or hacker decides to manipulate your website’s chatbot. Attacks like these can ultimately weaken your security software as well.

→ #2. There’s often bias buried in AI

When it comes down to it, humans created AI, so it’s only natural that it possesses some of our less-desirable traits. Nowhere is this more obvious than with AI bias. Whether based on race, gender, or religion, the results can be destructive for a business.

AI bias was shown on a huge scale when Amazon specialists discovered that their AI-based recruitment tool showed prejudice against women. Amazon quickly realized their mistake: they had asked the AI to replicate past recruitment practices.

Previously, Amazon higher-ups had shown a significant preference for hiring men, so the AI merely replicated their existing bias. As a business owner, claims of discrimination, even unintentional, can destroy your reputation.

→ #3. Fake job applicants can pose as professionals

Did you think bias is the only issue AI brings to the job application process? Well, think again. Chatbots like GPT-3 are adept at constructing authentic cover letters, resumes, and past-work references.

These days, AI is so good at writing your resume that not a single bit of it needs to be true, causing distrust in job interviews. Consequently, job application scams have become increasingly popular, as reported by the FBI.

At a time of heavy job loss and unemployment, crooks will use whatever AI tools they can to breach your business data, especially through inside jobs. Introducing deeper background checks is the best way to avoid this threat.

→ #4. AI makes hackers stronger

To hackers, chatbots have become a weapon, representing a huge vulnerability to the rest of us. If set on a malicious goal, AI obeys without question. What once took the efforts of a team of cybercriminals now takes one AI.

• Phishing and catfishing: They sound like a human and react like one too — AI chatbots have already proven more effective at social engineering scams than human criminals.
• Deepfake video and voice: Hackers use AI-powered “deepfake” software to imitate you or your loved ones. Blackmailing a business or individual has never been so easy.
• Fuzzing: Have a security flaw in an old WordPress plugin? “Fuzzing” software has become super-powered with AI, helping developers (and hackers) to spot security vulnerabilities quickly.

A cyberattack on business assets can be devastating, so browsing with a VPN at all times is recommended. VPNs mask your real location and data, i.e., connect to a US VPN server, and to hackers, you’ll appear to be from the United States.

5 ways you can use AI to supercharge your business

Mass media loves a doomsday story, and painting AI as an inevitable “Skynet” makes for easy clickbait.

Is AI really all that bad for business owners? Let’s take a closer look at 5 ways AI is transforming business for the better.

→ #1. Accelerate your customer service

All your customer service needs in one neat package. Imagine a receptionist that can do it all and more while providing the friendly customer service your clientele have come to know and love.

With new AI tools, automating customer support, returns, and follow-up emails occur at the click of a button. Target any locale with in-browser AI translation tools, connecting you to customers who don’t share your language.

→ #2. Delegate menial tasks to AI

How many business hours do you or your employees waste on tedious, time-consuming tasks? AI is the worker who’ll never complain — reserve your time for the projects that matter the most and leave the grunt work to the new guy.

Even marketing materials like email funnels, blog posts, and social media content can all be generated with an AI chatbot. Beware, if you let AI tools do all the work, the results sound quite robotic (who would have thought!). Nevertheless, using AI for content structuring and idea formulation is already endorsed.

→ #3. Automate your marketing campaigns

Marketing nerds rejoice — targeting your audience no longer requires trial and error. As you can probably imagine, AI tools can scan thousands of successful marketing campaigns in an instant.

This means your advertising strategy can emulate countless successful projects of the same type. Never again do your campaigns need to aim blindly, but now you can target your audience with laser-like precision.

→ #4. Encompassing fraud protection

AI advancements may be the precursor to some cyber crimes, but they’re also becoming the safeguard. By automatically recognizing suspicious activity, fraud prevention has never been so effective.

In the past, scammers have scored massive payouts from businesses through invoice fraud. With AI-based fraud detection, any suspicious invoice or activity will be flagged for your assessment. Whenever handling large sums of money, ensure your business and client’s security with automated fraud detection.

→ #5. Optimize your profit margin

Perhaps one of its simpler functions, AI is undoubtedly proficient at cutting business expenses to the bone. Identifying where is most crucial to increase profit margins can take months of work for an accomplished accountant.

Ask an AI to calculate the path of most profit and least resistance, and it will find a way. Vital services like this prove the importance of AI tools, not only for corporations but for small businesses too.

No one agrees on AI regulation…

AI tools are evolving so rapidly that governments don’t have time to keep up. While some embrace the new technology, some governments are weary and regulate the usage of AI in your business.

Europe has been vocal about a careful regulatory approach, while countries like China and India are pretty much unrestricted. In many countries like the United Kingdom, AI-assisted business is actually advocated.

When planning outreach to new geographies, check if your AI tools are legal in your chosen countries. Every country in the world is handling regulation differently, so implement new AI tools wisely.

Technology