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:
- NATO investigates hacker sale of missile firm data
August 26, 2022
Nato is assessing the impact of a data breach of classified military documents being sold by a hacker group online. The data includes blueprints of weapons being used by Nato allies in the Ukraine war. Criminal hackers are selling the dossiers after stealing data linked to a major European weapons maker. MBDA Missile Systems admitted its data was ...
- Cyber criminals are launching phishing attacks on LinkedIn
August 25, 2022
Regular users of LinkedIn, the professional networking and social working platform, have noticed an increase of threat actors trying to steal critical personal information through phishing attacks. These cyber criminals are using false LinkedIn accounts to trick unsuspecting victims into giving up confidential information. How are they doing it? Threat actors start by creating fraudulent LinkedIn ...
- CISA: Preparing Critical Infrastructure for Post-Quantum Cryptography
August 24, 2022
Nation-states and private companies are actively pursuing the capabilities of quantum computers. Quantum computing opens up exciting new possibilities; however, the consequences of this new technology include threats to the current cryptographic standards. These standards ensure data confidentiality and integrity and support key elements of network security. While quantum computing technology capable of breaking public ...
- Ransomware Actor Abuses Genshin Impact Anti-Cheat Driver to Kill Antivirus
August 24, 2022
There have already been reports on code-signed rootkits like Netfilter, FiveSys, and Fire Chili. These rootkits are usually signed with stolen certificates or are falsely validated. However, when a legitimate driver is used as a rootkit, that’s a different story. Such is the case of mhyprot2.sys, a vulnerable anti-cheat driver for the popular role-playing game ...
- Lloyd’s to exclude certain nation-state attacks from cyber insurance policies
August 24, 2022
Lloyd’s of London insurance policies will stop covering losses from certain nation-state cyber attacks and those that happen during wars, beginning in seven months’ time. In a memo sent to the company’s 76-plus insurance syndicates, underwriting director Tony Chaudhry said Lloyd’s remains “strongly supportive” of cyber attack coverage. However, as these threats continue to grow, they ...
- New ‘Donut Leaks’ extortion gang linked to recent ransomware attacks
August 23, 2022
A new data extortion group named ‘Donut Leaks’ is linked to recent cyberattacks, including those on Greek natural gas company DESFA, UK architectural firm Sheppard Robson, and multinational construction company Sando. Two victims disclosed these attacks without much information regarding who was involved. Over the weekend, DESFA confirmed they suffered a cyberattack after Ragnar Locker leaked screenshots ...

