AI-Powered GUI Attack and Its Defensive Methods
This addresses cybersecurity risks for GUI-based computer systems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing AI techniques for attack and defense.
The paper tackles the threat of AI-powered malware targeting GUI systems by designing an attack using AI-based object recognition and proposing defensive methods like adversarial examples, showing that such attacks can be implemented simply and countermeasures are temporarily effective.
Since the first Graphical User Interface (GUI) prototype was invented in the 1970s, GUI systems have been deployed into various personal computer systems and server platforms. Recently, with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, malicious malware powered by AI is emerging as a potential threat to GUI systems. This type of AI-based cybersecurity attack, targeting at GUI systems, is explored in this paper. It is twofold: (1) A malware is designed to attack the existing GUI system by using AI-based object recognition techniques. (2) Its defensive methods are discovered by generating adversarial examples and other methods to alleviate the threats from the intelligent GUI attack. The results have shown that a generic GUI attack can be implemented and performed in a simple way based on current AI techniques and its countermeasures are temporary but effective to mitigate the threats of GUI attack so far.