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:
- KBOT: sometimes they come back
February 10, 2020
Although by force of habit many still refer to any malware as a virus, this once extremely common class of threats is gradually becoming a thing of the past. However, there are some interesting exceptions to this trend: we recently discovered malware that spread through injecting malicious code into Windows executable files; in other words, ...
- Introducing Loda Malware
February 10, 2020
Loda is a previously undocumented AutoIT malware with a variety of capabilities for spying on victims. Proofpoint first observed Loda in September of 2016 and it has since grown in popularity. The name ‘Loda’ is derived from a directory to which the malware author chose to write keylogger logs (Figure 14). It should be noted that some ...
- Happy New Fear! Gift-wrapped spam and phishing
February 7, 2020
In the run-up to Christmas and New Year, scam е-mails mentioning easy pickings, lottery winnings, and other cash surprises are especially popular. All the more so given how simple it is to adapt existing schemes simply by mentioning the holiday in the subject line. For example, one scam е-mail with the subject line “Xsmas gift” or ...
- Bouygues Construction falls victim to ransomware
February 5, 2020
Bouygues Construction has confirmed falling victim to ransomware that it detected across its network on January 30. “As a precautionary measure, information systems have been shut down to prevent any propagation,” the company said in a brief statement. “Our teams are currently fully focused on returning to normal as quickly as possible, with the support of experts. “Installations are ...
- SORA and UNSTABLE: 2 Mirai Variants Target Video Surveillance Storage Systems
February 5, 2020
Trend Micro researchers encountered two variants of the notorious internet of things (IoT) malware, Mirai, employing a new propagation method. The two variants, namely SORA (detected as IoT.Linux.MIRAI.DLEU) and UNSTABLE (detected as IoT.Linux.MIRAI.DLEV), gain entry through Rasilient PixelStor5000 video surveillance storage systems by exploiting CVE-2020-6756. Mirai is a type of malware that actively searches for IoT devices with vulnerabilities, infects them, and turns ...
- Ransomware Attack Hinders Toll Group Operations
February 4, 2020
Australian transportation and logistics giant Toll Group said a ransomware attack is to blame for several key services being debilitated and delivery operations being delayed over the past week. Toll Group, a subsidiary of Japan Post Holdings, is a freight and delivery service company operating across more than 1,200 locations in 50 countries. The company is ...