Cybersecurity faces a challenge from artificial intelligence’s rise
Washington PostMay 11, 2023
A study conducted by British researchers has found that artificial intelligence (AI), by solely listening to the sound of keys being pressed, can detect a password being typed on a physical keyboard with 90% accuracy.
The researchers pressed all 36 keys on a MacBook Pro — including all of the letters and numbers — 25 times in a row, using different fingers and with varying pressure. The sounds were recorded from a short distance away via Zoom and a phone, which were used to train a machine learning program.
As AI surpasses our outdated computer safety programs and legal policies exponentially, criminals will soon be able to simply ask their AI bot to breach any type of sensitive information in any number of ways. Hackers in China have already fooled tax authorities with fake facial recognition of a person, so it's impossible to say what they'll do once they've acquired passwords via keyboard eavesdropping.
While criminals will certainly try to use AI for their nefarious purposes, the cybersecurity industry, too, is increasingly utilizing the technology to beat hackers at their own games. As AI can detect and assess cyber threats faster than human analysts, security experts will now be able to tackle more crimes while exhausting less time and resources.