Cybersecurity services provider CrowdStrike is taking a look into 2024 and seeing plenty of work to be done defending against sophisticated attacks driven by artificial intelligence technologies, along with defending the integrity of elections.
Last year saw an unprecedented surge in foreign adversaries leveraging stolen credentials, exploiting security gaps in cloud systems, and employing AI technology for malicious purposes with a particular focus on attacking U.S. infrastructure, the firm said in a new report out today.
The report – 2024 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report: From Breakout to Breach in Under Three Minutes; Cloud Infrastructure Under Attack – outlines some of the biggest threats facing the U.S. across the cybersecurity threat landscape, including how foreign adversaries will be looking to target U.S. election integrity this year.
“As organizations plan for potential threats emerging in 2024, two potential disruption drivers come to the forefront: generative AI and 2024 global government elections,” stated CrowdStrike.
“Today’s cyber threats are particularly alarming due to the widespread use of hands-on or ‘interactive intrusion’ techniques, which involve adversaries actively executing actions on a host to accomplish their objectives,” the CrowdStrike report says.
“Unlike malware attacks that depend on the deployment of malicious tooling and scripts, interactive intrusions leverage the creativity and problem-solving skills of human adversaries. These individuals can mimic expected user and administrator behavior, making it difficult for defenders to differentiate between legitimate user activity and a cyberattack,” the company said.
One of the prevailing cybersecurity issues this year is the 2024 U.S. elections, which the report warns could potentially be prime targets of Russian and Iranian state-sponsored attackers.
“In 2024, countries of interest involved in election cycles will likely be at risk of significant and lengthy IO [Information Operation] campaigns from major global powers,” the report says. “Russia and Iran will likely leverage IO against the U.S. and the EU, which they consider major geopolitical opponents.”
The report indicates that the ease of use of new AI tools will allow state-sponsored attackers to use them to sow election-related disinformation across the U.S. “Politically active partisans within those countries holding elections will also likely use generative AI to create disinformation to disseminate within their own circles,” CrowdStrike said.
Other areas of concern raised in the report include:
- A dramatic increase in attack velocity;
- A sharp increase in interactive intrusions and hands-on-keyboard attacks; and
- Foreign adversaries following along with industries’ move towards cloud infrastructure and focusing their attacks on cloud-based services.
