Why 'dark AI' is a top cybersecurity concern for 2024

Without question, the hype around artificial intelligence is one of the biggest stories of 2023. But with the good, can come the bad. That's why CrowdStrike (CRWD) is flagging the nefarious use of AI as one of its biggest cybersecurity concerns of 2024.

Crowdstrike President Michael Sentonas tells Yahoo Finance Live that "there's so much benefit to AI," but bad actors can take advantage of those benefits too. For example, Sentonas says, "We're seeing the rise in things like dark AI. So we use things like ChatGPT for good. There's equivalents for bad."

Watch the video above to hear more from Sentonas about dark AI and why it's a concern.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Joining us now is Michael Sentonas as CrowdStrike president. Michael, let me get this-- just start high level here as we go into 2024. What are the cyber threats, Michael, that we need to be aware of? How are they going to shift and change?

MICHAEL SENTONAS: Well, one of the big topics to talk about is the impact of artificial intelligence. There's so much benefit to this technology. It gives us access to information. It gets it at our fingertips. So there's a huge speed advantage. But we also need to understand that those benefits also apply to people that want to do bad things. So we're seeing adversaries get access to information. They're getting smarter. We're seeing the rise in things like dark AI. So we use things like ChatGPT for good. There's equivalents for bad. So we're seeing adversaries create tools to allow the average person to carry out some pretty sophisticated attacks.

And then that can flow into so many other parts of our life. We talk about the election. The ease of access to these tools means that you can have rampant spread of disinformation. It's a lot cheaper to do it. And that speed advantage is something that we need to think about from an adversary perspective. It's a real problem.

JULIE HYMAN: Michael, I mean, not to get too tinfoil hat then on us, right, but you heard the discussion we were just having with our Rick Newman. You know, when we're talking about these two presidential candidates who are elderly, let's say, and one of them who's the subject of multiple different court battles, right? If something happens, the idea that that information could be put out there in a fraudulent incorrect way, what do you do about that? And how prepared are we as a country and as a globe for that kind of thing?

MICHAEL SENTONAS: Well, I'm going to be the bearer of bad news. I mean, that sort of thing happens all the time. And we see examples of misinformation all the time. I mean, I'm sure you've both seen that before. You wake up. And whether it's a politician, it's a celebrity, it's an athlete, there's something that they've had an injury, they've retired, a sad, horrible stories where people have passed away, and they're not true. And obviously, when you think about the context of that in relation to an election, that's obviously very problematic.

Look, a lot of work goes into trying to lock these systems down. A lot of work goes into trying to get ahead of people manipulating these algorithms or using these algorithms for malicious purpose. And look, we're getting better as an industry. So we see, for example, the early use of generative AI was giving people access to information they shouldn't have. So the average person could work out the formula for how to build a bomb or to get access to information that shouldn't just naturally get.

And we've seen a lot of the creators of this software get a lot better to lock that down, to stop that from happening. They can detect when these misinformation campaigns happen and get rid of that. But look, we're early days. I mean, this is the new world that we all live in. And we're going to find out things as we go. We're going to have to get better at getting smarter, how to deal with it. And at CrowdStrike, from our perspective, we try to teach organizations, we try to teach people how to use technology, how to use the benefit but do it in a safe and secure way.