Security consequences of AI

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October

2021

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Companies store more and more data, because data is valuable. However with the increase in data also comes the responsibility to keep the data private. There is a necessity for companies to secure their data, to make sure it does not fall into the hands of malicious third parties. The old protections systems based on software designed and operated by humans might not be enough anymore, as can be seen from some high profile data leaks. Some examples are the 500 million LinkedIn profiles that got scraped of the database of the company in April of this year and the cyberattack on EasyJet where over 9 million customers were affected [1].

New technologies however, may bring change for the good or bad of companies. Especially AI is promising when used in both security and hacking of a company’s data.

Hacking with AI

Getting hacked by AI systems may seem far away in the future, but there are already real world examples of AI software that would be capable of hacking. There currently exist hacking events composed of AI systems that compete against each other. In 2016, DARPA ran a hacking event where the AI systems of one hundred teams had to try and hack software that was not analysed or tested before [2]. To keep it short, the results were that the winning AI system was still worse than the human hackers that competed with the winning AI system. The gap between AI and humans is getting smaller however. The most worrying thing is that AI systems seem particularly good at finding vulnerabilities, which is one of the most often used ways to get to data of companies [2].

AI in security

There is a silver lining however, AI systems can also be incorporated in the security systems of companies. There are already a multitude of AI systems that companies utilize. Some of these include modelling user behaviour, antivirus products, automated network and system analysis and email scanning [3]. These AI systems will also be improved upon over time and might be able to hold of the AI systems build for hacking.

[1]https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/14-of-the-worst-data-leaks-breaches-scrapes-and-security-snafus-in-the-last-decade/

[2] https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/2021/04/the-coming-ai-hackers.html

[3] https://cisomag.eccouncil.org/hackers-using-ai/

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The Virtual Reality of Marketing

20

September

2021

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Virtual reality today

Most of you have probably heard of the term virtual reality (VR), but probably not a lot of you have actually experienced VR. That may soon change however, since VR is becoming more and more affordable, due to the increase in affordable computing power that the consumer can buy. A multitude of companies have also jumped at this opportunity to create VR headsets for consumers to dive into VR with. A good example is Facebook, who spent roughly $2 billion on making the oculus rift in March 2014 (eMarketer 2016). Some even say that the development of VR is similar to social media in 2008, before it became mainstream (Morris 2016).

The business of VR

Companies are obviously interested in VR, but what will they do with it you might ask yourself? For Facebook its very obvious, they try to make VR part of their platform by making users sign in to their Facebook account when using their VR headset. But Facebook is not the only company that is interested in VR. There are a lot of potential applications in marketing that include promotion, market research, online sales, customer service, brand management, and public relations (Barnes 2016). An example of using VR as a marketing tool can be seen in the video below where it is shown how Lowe, a do it yourself company, uses VR to sell more to customers.

The consumer experience in VR

The most appealing part of VR is that consumers can get the most realistic experience of a product, service or place without needing to be at the physical location (Barnes 2016). Companies can use this to their advantage by ensuring that they have some form of themselves in VR applications that consumers with a VR headset use. A good example of this was Virtual Market 3, a social convention in an application called VRChat [1]. Companies like Panasonic and 7-eleven made booths to show products and have consumer interaction in VR. This is a step in having advertisements in VR and conquering the virtual reality as a company.

By Bas van Zundert

References

Morris, C. (2016). Virtual reality and the new sales experience. Available from:
http://www.campaignlive.com/article/virtual-reality-new-sales-experience/1392253

eMarketer (2016). Virtual Reality Is an Immersive Medium for Marketers: Marketers should
start experimenting sooner rather than later. Available from:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Virtual-Reality-Immersive-MediumMarketers/1013526

Stuart, B. (2016). Understanding Virtual Reality in Marketing: Nature, Implications and Potential. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2909100

[1] http://m/sites/jessedamiani/2019/09/23/virtual-market-3-the-largest-socialvr-convention-in-the-world-opens-in-vrchat/

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