Threat actors are weaponizing social media with generative AI
World Social Media Day was launched by Mashable on June 30, 2010. It was created to recognize social media’s impact on global communication and bring the world together to celebrate it.
According to a DataReportal report, Thailand was home to 49.10 million social media users in January 2024, equating to 68.3 % of the total population.
Addressing the rising cyber threats accompanying our increasing reliance on social media platforms is essential. The proliferation of AI technology has enabled the creation of convincing deepfakes and AI-generated content, significantly blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
Please find below a commentary from Lisa Sim, Vice President of Marketing, Asia Pacific and Japan, Palo Alto Networks, on how individuals and organisations can protect themselves against these growing threats.
“Today, social media touches virtually every aspect of our lives. And with it, cyber threats. While social media has long been a tool for cybercriminals, the widespread availability of AI is only heightening the threat, as deepfakes and AI-generated content blurs the line between reality and fiction.”
"We just need to look at Thailand to see how AI can be used by malicious actors. Recent examples include deepfake videos featuring a well-known investing specialist, Kavee Chukitkasem video, which features him promoting an investment scam circulating on social media and reaching thousands of Thais. This underscores AI's potential for creating convincing but false content and social media’s power to amplify cybercriminals' reach.”
"Pairing social media and AI-generated content gives cyber criminals a powerful social engineering tool to manipulate everyday people into taking risky actions, like clicking on malicious links.”
"World Social Media Day reminds us that to protect ourselves, we must scrutinise the content we see carefully, verifying sources and checking for inconsistencies in videos or images. It's also prudent to regularly review and adjust your account’s privacy settings to control who can see your posts and personal information. By staying vigilant, we can protect ourselves in this new online threat landscape in which we live.”
