Headline-Stealing Hacks Involving AI-Based Voice Chatbots & Automated MSPs

Every new technology trend opens up new attack vectors for cybercriminals. With an ongoing cybersecurity skills shortage, the need for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), unified security and automated platforms to bolster cybersecurity and protect organizations from the ever-evolving threat landscape has never been more important. As we dive into 2024, the emerging threats targeting companies and individuals will be even more intense, complicated, and difficult to manage. Today, I’m sharing three 2024 cybersecurity predictions from WatchGuard’s Threat Lab research team and explaining the reasoning behind them.

AI Spear Phishing Tool Sales Boom on the Dark Web 

While AI/ML may still only account for a fraction of attacks, during 2024 we expect to see threat actors really begin experimenting with AI attack tools and start to sell them on the underground. We foresee a boom in the emerging market for automated spear phishing tools, or a combination of tools, on the dark web. Spear phishing is one of the most effective tactics attackers have to breach networks. However, traditionally it has also required a massive amount of manual work to research and target victims. There are already publicly available tools for sale on the underground to send spam email, automatically craft convincing, targeted text when equipped with the right prompts, and scrape the Internet and social media for a particular target’s information and connections. But a lot of these tools are still manual and require attackers to target one user or group at a time. Well-formatted procedural tasks like these are perfect for automation via AI/ML. During 2024, we expect to see at least one AI/ML-based tool to help automated spear phishing show up for sale on the underground.

AI-Based Vishing Takes Off in 2024 

Voice phishing (vishing) increased over 550% YoY between the first quarter of 2021 and Q1 2022. Vishing is when a scammer calls you pretending to be a reputable company or organization or even a co-worker (or someone’s boss) and tries to get you to do something they can monetize, such as buying gift cards or cryptocurrency on their behalf.

The only thing holding this attack back is its reliance on human power. While VoIP and automation technology make it easy to mass dial thousands of numbers and leave messages or redirect victims unlucky enough to answer, once they’ve been baited to get on the line, a human scammer must take over the call to reel them in (so to speak). Many of these vishing gangs end up being large call centers in particular areas of the world, very similar to support call centers, where many employees have fresh daily scripts that they follow to socially engineer you out of your money. This reliance on human capital is one of the few things limiting the scale of vishing operations.

We predict that the combination of convincing deepfake audio and large language models (LLMs) capable of carrying on conversations with unsuspecting victims will greatly increase the scale and volume of vishing calls we see in 2024. What’s more, they may not even require a human threat actor’s participation.

MSPs Double Security Services via Automated Platforms

The last full-year estimate pegged the global number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs at 3.4 million, a figure that surely grew substantially in 2023. Adding fuel to the fire, cybersecurity has a burnout problem (pun intended), which is why Gartner predicts nearly 50% of cybersecurity leaders will change jobs, contributing to a “great cybersecurity resignation.” With so many unfilled cybersecurity positions, how will the average small to midmarket company protect themselves?

The answer is managed service and security service providers (MSP/MSSPs). MSPs will enjoy significant growth in their managed detection and response (MDR) and security operations center (SOC) services IF they can build the team and infrastructure to support it. We expect the number of companies who look to outsource security to double due to both the challenging economy and difficulty in finding cybersecurity professionals. To support this spike in demand for managed security services, MSPs/MSSPs will turn to unified security platforms with heavy automation (AI/ML), to lower their cost of operations, and offset the difficulty they may also have in filling cybersecurity technician roles

As these threats potentially evolve from predictions to reality, it’s essential to ensure you have the solutions and assets to protect your business and your customers. To learn what other emerging threat trends and security techniques are lurking around the corner and how you can protect against them, check out the WatchGuard Threat Lab’s complete list of 2024 Cybersecurity Predictions and accompanying videos here.

About the Author

Marc Laliberte is the Director of Security Operations at WatchGuard Technologies. Marc joined the WatchGuard team in 2012 and has spent much of the last decade helping shape WatchGuard’s internal security maturation from various roles and responsibilities. Marc’s responsibilities include leading WatchGuard’s security operations center as well as the WatchGuard Threat Lab, a research-focused thought leadership team that identifies and reports on modern information security trends. With regular speaking appearances and contributions to online IT publications, Marc is a leading thought leader providing security guidance to all levels of IT personnel.