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:

  • Air France and KLM notify customers of account hacks

    January 6, 2023

    Air France and KLM have informed Flying Blue customers that some of their personal information was exposed after their accounts were breached. Flying Blue is a loyalty program allowing clients of multiple airlines, including Air France, KLM, Transavia, Aircalin, Kenya Airways, and TAROM, to exchange loyalty points for various rewards. “Our security operations teams have detected suspicious ...

  • Freedom for MegaCortex ransomware victims – the fix is out

    January 6, 2023

    An international law enforcement effort has released a decryptor for victims of MegaCortex ransomware, widely used by cybercriminals to infect large corporations across 71 countries to the tune of more than $100 million in damages. The decryptor, built by Europol, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender, the NoMoreRansom Project, the Zürich Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Zürich Cantonal Police, ...

  • Now this password-stealing Android malware wants to grab your bank details too

    January 5, 2023

    A prolific and powerful form of Android malware has switched its attention to online banking applications, using abilities including keylogging to steal usernames and passwords for bank accounts, social media profiles and more. Detailed by researchers at cybersecurity company ThreatFabric, the Android malware is part of the SpyNote family, a form of trojan spyware which has ...

  • Bluebottle: Campaign Hits Banks in French-speaking Countries in Africa

    January 5, 2023

    Bluebottle, a cyber-crime group that specializes in targeted attacks against the financial sector, is continuing to mount attacks on banks in Francophone countries. The group makes extensive use of living off the land, dual-use tools, and commodity malware, with no custom malware deployed in this campaign. The activity observed by Symantec, a division of Broadcom Software, ...

  • PyTorch dependency poisoned with malicious code

    January 4, 2023

    An unknown attacker used the PyPI code repository to get developers to download a compromised PyTorch dependency that included malicious code designed to steal system data. Developers who last week downloaded the nightly builds of the open source PyTorch framework also unknowingly installed a malicious version of the torchtriton dependency found in the Python Package Index, ...

  • 200 million Twitter users’ email addresses allegedly leaked online

    January 4, 2023

    A data leak described as containing email addresses for over 200 million Twitter users has been published on a popular hacker forum for about $2. BleepingComputer has confirmed the validity of many of the email addresses listed in the leak. Since July 22nd, 2022, threat actors and data breach collectors have been selling and circulating large ...