Criminal AI-as-a-Service in 2026: How the Underground Market Is Operationalizing Cybercrime


The underground market for criminally oriented generative AI has moved beyond the early hype surrounding ‘malicious chatbots.’ The gradual integration of AI as a productivity layer within cybercrime operations has become the dominant story, indicating that while the potential for fully autonomous AI hacking systems is possible, attackers are not embracing them as expected. Instead, threat actors are increasingly using AI to accelerate routine, but operationally significant, tasks to scale their operations. Drafting phishing lures, profiling targets, debugging code, generating forged documents, modifying malware, translating victim communications, and processing stolen data at scale were once time-consuming activities that AI has made significantly easier. AI does not replace cybercriminals; it lowers friction, increases speed, and expands the range of actors able to perform tasks that previously required more time, skill, or external support.

Read more…
Source:  Rapid7 News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • GoldenEye Dog(APT-Q-27) gang’s recent use of “Silver Fox” Trojan stealing activities

    June 6, 2025

    GoldenEyeDog (tracked internally as APT-Q-27 by Qi’anxin) is a hacking group targeting people involved in gaming and dog-pushing in Southeast Asia, as well as the overseas Chinese community, with a range of business activities including remote control, mining, DDoS attacks, etc. It is related to a larger attack group tracked by Qi’anxin, the Miuuti Group. The ...

  • Analysis of the latest Mirai wave exploiting TBK DVR devices with CVE-2024-3721

    June 6, 2025

    The abuse of known security flaws to deploy bots on vulnerable systems is a widely recognized problem. Many automated bots constantly search the web for known vulnerabilities in servers and devices connected to the internet, especially those running popular services. These bots often carry Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploits targeting HTTP services, allowing attackers to embed ...

  • Texas: Drivers’ data compromised in TxDOT data breach of nearly 300,000 crash reports

    June 6, 2025

    The Texas Department of Transportation said it is reaching out to Texans whose personal data was compromised during a data breach that led to the improper download of nearly 300,000 crash reports. Personal data included in crash reports includes: full names, mailing and/or physical addresses, driver license numbers, license plate numbers, car insurance policy numbers and ...

  • Fake DocuSign and Gitcode sites are tricking victims into downloading malware

    June 5, 2025

    Security researchers have found fake Gitcode and DocuSign websites distributing remote access trojan (RAT) malware using the infamous ClickFix method. Experts from DomainTools Investigations (DTI) found “malicious multi-stage downloader Powershell scripts” hosted on spoofed websites inviting visitors to pull up the Windows Run terminal and run a script copied into their clipboard. “Upon doing so, the ...

  • Ransomware hiding in fake AI, business tools

    June 5, 2025

    Artificial intelligence (AI) and small business tools are being abused as smokescreens to hit unsuspecting victims with ransomware. In the masquerade campaigns discovered by Cisco Talos, cybercriminals hid malware behind software and install packages that mimicked the websites or names of the lead monetization service Nova Leads, the enormously popular Chat GPT, and an AI-empowered video ...

  • Ransomware gang claims responsibility for Kettering Health hack

    June 4, 2025

    A ransomware gang claimed responsibility for the hack on Kettering Health, a network of hospitals, clinics, and medical centers in Ohio. The healthcare system is still recovering two weeks after the ransomware attack forced it to shut down all its computer systems. Interlock, a relatively new ransomware group that has targeted healthcare organizations in the U.S. ...