The algorithm hides sensitive information in a sea of decoys
Hackers constantly improve at penetrating cyberdefenses to steal valuable documents.
The algorithm, called Word Embedding-based Fake Online Repository Generation Engine, generates decoys of patents under development.
Someday it could "Create a lot of fake versions of every document that a company feels it needs to guard," says its developer, Dartmouth College cybersecurity researcher V. S. Subrahmanian.
If hackers were after, say, the formula for a new drug, they would have to find the relevant needle in a haystack of fakes.
Counterfeit documents produced by WE-FORGE could also act as hidden "Trip wires," says Rachel Tobac, CEO of cybersecurity consultancy SocialProof Security.
"But now if this AI is able to do that for us, then we can create a lot of new documents that are believable for an attacker-without having to do more work," says Tobac, who was not involved in the project.
The system produces convincing decoys by searching through a document for keywords.
The process can produce dozens of documents that contain no proprietary information but still look plausible.
Subrahmanian and his team asked computer science and chemistry graduate students to evaluate real and fake patents from their respective fields, and the humans found the WE-FORGE-generated documents highly believable.
WE-FORGE might eventually expand its scope, but Subrahmanian notes that a document recommending a course of action would be much more complex than a technical formula.