AI Goes on Offense: How LLMs Are Redefining the Cybercrime Landscape


In their last blog, Rapid7 explored the broader rise of AI-enabled threats across ransomware, phishing, and nation-state operations. Now, they’re narrowing in on a specific piece of that evolution: how cybercriminals are using large language models to scale and automate their tactics.

AI in cybersecurity is no longer experimental. It’s embedded in workflows, transforming everything from alert triage to vulnerability scoring. But while defenders have begun to harness its power, so have attackers and they’re scaling faster than many security teams expect. The emergence of large language models (LLMs) designed specifically for cybercrime such as WormGPT, FraudGPT, and DarkBERT shows just how far threat actors are willing to go to scale operations.

Read more…
Source: Rapid7


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Update Chrome to patch critical browser security flaws

    June 25, 2026

    Google released a security update for Chrome that fixes 18 vulnerabilities, including four rated Critical. There is no indication that any of these newly patched bugs are being actively exploited in the wild. The stable channel has been updated to 149.0.7827.196/197 for Windows and Mac and 149.0.7827.196 for Linux. The update will roll out over the coming days ...

  • Almost half of ransomware victims have data stolen before they can even detect an intrusion

    June 25, 2026

    Criminals are getting better at hiding within their victims’ infrastructure, lurking and stealing files without triggering any alarms whatsoever. Earlier today, network detection and response experts ExtraHop released the “Global Threat Landscape Report”, based on a survey of more than 1,800 IT and security leaders worldwide. In it, it is said that roughly half (49%) of ...

  • Global cyber strike disrupts SocGholish, Amadey, and StealC malware networks

    June 24, 2026

    Europol together with partners from across the globe today announces a landmark blow to cybercriminal networks as part of Operation Endgame, a sweeping international operation targeting the criminal infrastructure behind ransomware and malware like SocGholish, Amadey, and StealC. In coordinated actions over the past two weeks, key components of these malicious toolkits were dismantled as ...

  • US healthcare AI platform Xsolis confirms data breach that affects 1.4 million individuals

    June 23, 2026

    Healthcare technology company Xsolis disclosed a cyberattack in which it lost sensitive data on almost 1.4 million customers. Xsolis is a company that uses AI to help healthcare organizations make faster and more consistent decisions about patient care and utilization management. Earlier this week, it published a data breach notification on its website, saying that it ...

  • A VBScript campaign distributed through WhatsApp deploying RMM software

    June 22, 2026

    In June 2026, Kaspersky observed a malware campaign distributing malicious VBScript files through direct messages in WhatsApp. The campaign affected users across multiple countries and territories, including Malaysia, Brazil, India, Mexico, Singapore, UK, Spain, Taiwan, Australia, Russia and Vietnam, with the highest number of victims observed in Malaysia. At the time of writing this article, ...

  • AI models capable of devastating attacks on governments and business months away

    June 22, 2026

    Powerful AI models capable of devastating new cyber attacks on governments and businesses are mere months away, intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes have warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to “act now”. The surprising public intervention by signals agencies for Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada comes after the Trump administration ...