It sounds like something out of a science fiction film. Scientists just developed new technology that entraps hackers in an artificial, cyber “shadow world.” The goal is to prevent these cybercriminals from carrying through with their objectives by luring them into what is being defined as “an attractive — but imaginary — world.”
The cybersecurity technology is called “Shadow Figment,” and has been designed mainly to protect key physical targets like the electric grid, water systems, and pipelines, among other crucial aspects of our country’s infrastructure.
This groundbreaking tech was created by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), according to a recent announcement.
Shadow Figment: A new era of national cybersecurity defense
Shadow Figment uses AI to keep attackers engaged in an illusory online world once they enter a system like the electrical grid. The hackers are led to believe they are interacting directly with users in real time, with the AI responding realistically to commands.
“Our intention is to make interactions seem realistic, so that if someone is interacting with our decoy, we keep them involved, giving our defenders extra time to respond,” said Thomas Edgar, a PNNL cybersecurity researcher who led the team designing Shadow Figment, in the announcement.
The AI utilized in this program is very sophisticated. Hackers will be given false signals of success, thinking they have accurately infiltrated a system. This gives a cybersecurity defense team time to learn about the hack itself and better fortify the real system. Think of it like a digital smokescreen, throwing the hackers off their game.
PNNL’s research team says this “model-driven dynamic deception” made possible by advanced machine learning is a more credible AI defense than “static decoys” that have more traditionally been a part of cyber defense.
The real-world threat of hackers
The PNNL stresses there is a pressing need for this kind of technology. In recent years, we’ve seen examples like the 2015 attack on Ukraine’s electrical grid as well as the hack of the Colonial pipeline here in the United States.
While this new technology can be a game changer in national defense, it further reiterates why we all need to be vigilant about our own cybersecurity hygiene.
We might not be able to deploy our own version of Shadow Figment, but we can still make sure we use unique passwords for all of our accounts and devices, set up two-factor authentication, and be judicious in what emails and links we open to avoid phishing scams and ransomware attacks.
These new innovations from the U.S. government can offer a helpful reminder of how pressing the threat of cybercriminals is in our daily lives and what we can do to defend ourselves.