Trust Is the New Frontier in a World of AI Synthetic Content, Digital Doppelgangers

Thanks to the capabilities of artificial intelligence, trust is going to be an even more important component in the cybersecurity landscape.

“The mantra moving forward is trust no one, verify everyone,” said Experian in its newly released 2027 Data Breach Industry Forecast: Consumers at Risk.

The 14th installment of the annual report identified a more pronounced need for verification as AI’s rapidly growing ability to produce what seems to be real blurs the line of what actually is real.

“Cybercriminals are using AI to improve social engineering attacks, while organizations are deploying AI across customer service, operations and business processes,” Experian said in the report. “As both legitimate and malicious uses of AI increase, distinguishing between authentic and synthetic interactions becomes more difficult.”

The legitimacy of identities, interactions, and transactions – and the ability to prove them – may start to become a very valuable aspect of cybersecurity. Experian said verification will emerge as one of the fastest-growing areas of investment. The matter may become a key differentiator for businesses, especially if consumers push back and drop those who do not demonstrate or protect authenticity.

“Cybersecurity is entering a new era where proving authenticity is just as important as protecting data,” said Michael Bruemmer, vice president of Global Data Breach Resolution at Experian, in a statement.

He said decades of exposed data is already available from previous breaches. Now with AI tool, cybercriminals can use the information in identity theft.

“Criminal organizations can use AI to organize stolen data, identify connections across records and build detailed victim profiles,” Experian said. “These profiles may incorporate personal information, financial records, account credentials, behavioral patterns, location history, social media activity and other publicly available information.”

Imagine, says Experian, a doppelganger – a digital twin of a person that can be updated with additional information as it is made available by future breaches or other sources. Personal information never gets old. It is maintained more easily and reused with AI’s help with social engineering or financial transfer fraud schemes.

Other emerging trends from the report include:

• Consumers Fighting Fire with Fire: Will consumers create synthetics versions of themselves and use the authentic version only for a limited number of interactions they know they can trust? Will this smokescreen tactic work and what does it mean for an organization’s ability to collect consumer data?
• Breach Notifications Need a Reset: If there is always doubt in the validity of communication, how do we trust data breach notifications? What does this do to regulatory mandates?