Prepare for the AI Apocalypse Like You’d Prepare for a Snowstorm
If you start taking these basic steps to prepare for AI-powered cyberattacks, you might start wondering just how far you can go.
- Enable two-factor authentication everywhere you can—that is, opt in to receiving a confirmation code on your phone or, ideally, inside a dedicated app to add a layer of security to sensitive accounts.
- Phishing scams have gotten really, really good: Fake customer-service websites now regularly turn up in search results and direct you to AI voice agents, ready to steal your private information.
- If a representative of your bank, power company, or another service provider calls you, double-check by calling them back on the official company number.
You may receive personalized texts that look like they’re from your boss, a real-estate agent, an IRS official—you name it.
[ Read: Perhaps connecting fridges to the internet was a bad idea ] Governments and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who have been tracking this most closely, are steeling themselves against what promises to be an extended period of cybersecurity vulnerability—and they advise that you do the same.
- For everyday users of the internet, there are low-lift steps you can take to avoid being a sitting duck in this new reality.
- Everybody is starting to sound, just a little bit, like a doomsday prepper, and not without reason.
- So how do you keep your accounts, your family, and your finances all safe?
- Over the past month or so, those scenarios have come alive in almost spectacular fashion: Last month, AI was used to find major security flaws in software used by 70 percent of websites, prompting governments to take down their websites as a precaution.
- Last week, for instance, the FBI issued a warning about hacks targeting industrial refrigeration systems following attacks on grocery stores in France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Israel, and other countries.
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