It turns out that AI-written malware may have been used in targeted attacks
Malicious code believed to have been created with the help of generative AI has been discovered in an email attack targeting users in France.
HP Wolf Security Threat Insights Report: September 2024 | HP Wolf Security
Hackers deploy AI-written malware in targeted attacks
Around June 2024, a phishing attack targeting French users was detected during an investigation by security company HP Wolf Security. HP Wolf Security used a brute force attack (password brute force attack) to unlock the ZIP file used in the phishing attack and discovered malware written in VBScript and JavaScript.
After analyzing the malware, HP Wolf Security speculates that the malware's script structure, comments, function names, and variable selection all come from a generative AI.
For example, one of the reasons given was that 'all the code was well commented,' which is not common, as criminals usually try to hide how the code works by not having all the code properly commented.
The malware was distributed through fraudulent advertisements on websites for supposed productivity tools, such as PDF converters, that tricked users into visiting the websites and installing the tools, thus infecting them with the malware.
'The activity we identified demonstrates how generative AI is accelerating attacks and lowering the barrier to entry for criminals,' HP Wolf Security said.
'Whether or not perfectly functional malware is created entirely by AI, generative AI certainly helps criminals speed up their work. With generative AI, even unskilled criminals can create malware in minutes,' said technology media BleepingComputer.
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