Artificial intelligence is changing the way the world works, but it is also changing the way cybercriminals attack people and companies. According to security professionals, there are fears that online scams will become faster, sharper, and very hard to detect. From fake voice calls to realistic messages and software alerts, cyberattacks are entering a new phase where technology can easily imitate human behaviour. Google Threat Intelligence CTO Shane Huntley recently said that AI is not creating entirely new threats but making existing ones more powerful. According to him, attackers and defenders are now locked in a race where both sides are trying to move quicker and operate at a much larger scale than before across industries and digital systems globally.
Speaking to Fortune India, Huntley explained that cyberattacks are no longer limited to poorly written emails or suspicious links. The next attack, he said, could begin with an AI-generated phone call that sounds completely real or a message designed specially for one target. His team at the Google Threat Intelligence Group has found that attackers are already using AI in many stages of cyber operations, including gathering information, finding weaknesses, creating harmful software, and automating attacks.
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He described AI as an ‘acceleration force’ that is helping attackers work faster than before. Huntley compared the current situation to earlier technology shifts where new tools removed limits and increased speed. According to him, AI is now doing the same thing for cybercrime.
The impact is already visible in changing attack patterns. Huntley noted that traditional phishing attacks have sharply declined from 22 per cent to 6 per cent as companies improved their security systems. In response, attackers are moving towards more advanced methods, including exploit-based attacks and highly targeted social engineering tricks.
Data from Mandiant showed that around 33 per cent of the attacks handled in the Asia-Pacific region were linked to exploit activity. The company also found that 11 per cent of attacks involved voice phishing, while 9 per cent came from stolen credentials.
Google’s report further warned that AI is reducing the time between discovering a security weakness and turning it into a real attack. Huntley said defenders cannot afford delays anymore because attackers are now operating at computer speed while security teams still depend heavily on human response times.