AI Frauds: The Sound Illusion Threatening Cybersecurity

Recently, a troubling situation highlighted the new capabilities of artificial intelligence technologies in the realm of fraud. My team received a voicemail allegedly from me, requesting a transfer of $85,000. The voice perfectly imitated my tone, my rhythm, and even my usual phrases. This type of fraud, known as "CEO fraud," has been amplified by the use of artificial intelligence, raising questions about what attackers can accomplish within a company's ecosystem, especially when Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) lack complete visibility over their infrastructures.

More Tools, Less Visibility: The Strategic Blind Spot

In the cybersecurity sector, a clear trend is emerging: while defenses have significantly strengthened, the accumulation of tools does not guarantee total visibility. Organizations often find themselves with partial signals, lacking a coherent overall view. Leaders must reassess the importance of complete visibility over their environments to better protect themselves.

Most companies use dozens of prevention, detection, response, and control tools. Each of these tools is designed to observe a specific part of the infrastructure, but none provide a comprehensive view. This situation is often referred to as "fragmentation" or "partial visibility." Despite the abundance of available data, clarity is lacking. It's like observing a scene with one eye: you can distinguish shapes, but you lose precision and, most importantly, the overall picture. Attackers are well aware of this weakness and exploit it fully.

Blind Spots: Potential Vulnerabilities

The attack pattern is often the same: the initial intrusion is usually not the most dangerous. The real damage occurs during the silent phase that follows, when attackers gradually extend their access, blend into normal activity, and quietly prepare their attack. Artificial intelligence accelerates this progression through automated reconnaissance, which can map a cloud architecture in just a few minutes.

AI is redefining the rules of the game. As organizations entrust their internal data to it for efficiency gains, they inadvertently offer attackers an unexpected ally. A compromised system becomes their best intelligence agent, capable of identifying, organizing, and exfiltrating sensitive information without them having to lift a finger.

Prevention is Necessary but Insufficient

While prevention is essential, it cannot stop all intrusions in a world where identities proliferate and threats are amplified by AI. The crucial question is no longer whether a breach can be prevented, but rather how quickly an intruder can be detected and neutralized. Therefore, having complete visibility over hybrid environments is indispensable. Partial visibility forces defenders to act based on assumptions rather than established facts.

Advanced Observability: Eyes Wide Open

To achieve a complete view, telemetry from the network is essential. Packets, flows, and application metadata provide insights into actual behavior, not just interpreted signals. Packets do not lie.

Combined with metrics, events, logs, and traces, network telemetry enables advanced observability. This observability allows for visualizing east-west movements, which are the internal movements of an attacker within a network, applying the principle of least privilege, understanding encrypted traffic that provides actionable insights, and analyzing endpoint logs, which gain relevance through network correlation.

Advanced observability strengthens investments in existing tools by anchoring security decisions on complete and reliable telemetry, rather than on a partial view.

Partial Visibility is No Longer an Option for Leaders

AI has ended the era where prevention alone was sufficient to build a cybersecurity strategy. Attackers now operate with formidable speed and ingenuity, and too often, with better visibility than their targets. The most resilient organizations will be those that possess a complete view, capable of identifying and eliminating these blind spots, true vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers. For, let’s remember, you cannot secure what you cannot see. Advanced observability allows you to see with both eyes wide open.