AI deepfakes estimated to cause $40 billion in losses by 2027

• Deepfakes and critical infrastructure attacks are the top concerns in Blackberry's Global Threat Intelligence Report
• 600,000 attacks were launched against critical infrastructure between July-September 2024
• 45% of these were against financial institutions

Critical infrastructure attacks continue to dominate the cybersecurity conversation, with Blackberry’s Global Threat Intelligence Report revealing nearly 600,000 attacks were levied against critical infrastructure attacks between July-September 2024.

The finance sector continues to face a huge amount of cyberattacks that could leave it on its knees, and is the target of 45% of these attacks, with healthcare organizations close behind making up 30% of incidents, followed by 17% for Government services. Downtime is costly for these sectors, making them more likely to pay a ransom to restore systems quickly - making them an attractive target.

The rise of AI has inevitably led to a rise in cyberattacks, but also in the particularly predictable rise in deepfake scams. These scams use an AI-generated image, video, or voice to impersonate an executive, or to infiltrate companies. This is projected to lead to a staggering $40 billion loss by just 2027, highlighting it as a growing threat.

Improving threats, improving tools

Deepfakes are eroding trust and present an unprecedented challenge for stakeholders who can no longer be 100% confident in the authenticity of executive communications.

This has outlined the serious need for deepfake regulatory frameworks, like the emerging US No Fraud AI Act and the Canadian legislation regarding non-consensual media.

Unsurprisingly, ransomware groups also shape the threat landscape, with infamous groups like LockBit and ALPHV proving to be ‘silent but deadly’ by evading detection.

“Our attack surface has never been wider, with threat actors and nation states broadening their horizons into cyber espionage attacks, while ransomware groups are becoming more sophisticated in their campaigns,” said Ismael Valenzuela, Vice President of Threat Research & Intelligence at BlackBerry.

“However, we’ve also never been better prepared. We have the tools, technology, and protocols to protect ourselves and mitigate the impact of attacks, and our industry is equipped to keep up with changes in threat actor methodology.”

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