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:
- Crime Cracking Technologies for the Dark Web
January 19, 2020
Anonymity is the real currency of the digital dark side and not just for the criminals. Organizations such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) J-CODE, Europol’s EC3, the German Federal Criminal Police, La Police Nationale Française, and many others invest significant amounts of time and cash into technologies and methodologies used to break ...
- Cyber-security breaches at 67 percent of healthcare organisations last year
January 16, 2020
A survey has found that a large portion of healthcare organisations in the UK experienced cyber-security incidents last year, which were mostly due to employees sharing data. According to new research, in the last 12 months, 67 percent of healthcare organisations in the UK suffered a cyber-security incident. The data was compiled by Clearswift, which surveyed senior business decision makers ...
- WeLeakInfo.com Domain Name Seized
January 16, 2020
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice announced that they have seized the internet domain name weleakinfo.com. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu of the District of Columbia and Special Agent in Charge Timothy M. Dunham of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The website had claimed to provide ...
- Satan Ransomware Reborn to Torment Businesses
January 16, 2020
A ransomware with the un-snappy moniker of “5ss5c” has emerged on the scene and appears to be in active development. According to independent researcher Bart Blaze, the malware is the successor to the Satan ransomware, and its authors are still experimenting with focused targeting (China, for now) and features. Blaze said in a blog posted Tuesday that 5ss5c and ...
- Scammers Dupe Texas School District Out of $2.3M
January 13, 2020
A Texas school district, based outside of Austin, Tex., has lost $2.3 million after falling victim to an email scam. The Manor Independent School District encompasses 8,000 students from elementary to high school. Police told local news outlets that the incident started in early November and continued through December, before it was discovered by the district. “It ...
- TrickBot Adds Custom, Stealthy Backdoor to its Arsenal
January 9, 2020
The Russian-speaking cybercriminals behind the TrickBot malware have developed a stealthy backdoor dubbed “PowerTrick,” in order to infiltrate high-value targets. According to research from SentinelLabs, released on Thursday, PowerTrick is designed to execute commands and return the results in Base64 format. It’s deployed as a module after the initial TrickBot infection has already taken hold on ...