Skynet wants your Passwords! @ WeAreDevelopers

The WeAreDevelopers World Congress is regarded by many as Europe’s flagship conference for developers and brings together an impressive community of software and technology enthusiasts to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

On Friday, July 28, 2023, Alexander Hurbean and Wolfgang Ettlinger from Certitude Consulting delivered an engaging presentation titled “Skynet wants your Passwords! The Role of AI in Automating Social Engineering” to a large audience of software developers. They emphasized the growing significance and impact of modern technologies in cyber security, but also highlighted that the human element often remains a critical vulnerability. From an attacker’s perspective, contemporary technologies, like AI, demonstrate immense power, particularly when targeting one of the weakest links in the security chain – the individual. Focusing on technologies such as DeepFakes, DNNs, and Transformers, Alexander and Wolfgang explored how these techniques can be exploited by malicious actors. They also presented ideas for attacks, discussed their practical feasibility, and showcased implementations of some of these assaults. Additionally, strategies were introduced to detect and defend against such AI-driven attacks.

Given the relevance and timeliness of the topic, we believe that the information and insights provided can be valuable for many teams grappling with AI-based attacks. For those who missed the presentation or wish to view it again, we will soon offer a recording.

If your team or organization needs assistance in defending against such AI attacks or wishes to learn more about these techniques, please contact us!

The conference talk is accompanied by an ongoing series of blogposts, aimed at presenting the research in a readable form on our Certitude Reasearch Blog. The first installment can be found under the following direct link. A list of all available posts of this series is also accessible under the following link.