As LLMs increasingly merged with consumer-facing products in 2023, threat actors expanded their attack turf. Hackers learnt to use AI to increase the speed and sophistication of their attacks, making it harder to defend. While the nature of cyberattacks did not change this year, cybercriminals used AI software to increase speed and accuracy. “Attackers are leveraging new tools and technologies to launch attacks at a blistering pace and with a level of accuracy and sophistication”, said Nathan Wenzler, Chief Security Strategist, Tenable. The use of AI by threat actors to increase the speed and efficiency of attacks, however, did not reach the levels of automation that were earlier expected. Generative AI tools were limited to crafting legitimate sounding phishing emails and assisting in the code writing process. However, defenders also made use of similar techniques to improve protection for networks, applications and systems.