Agentic AI could accelerate and automate future cyberattacks, Malwarebytes warns
Agentic AI may soon automate and scale cyberattacks, raising the threat level far beyond today’s phishing and malware incidents.
A new report by Malwarebytes warns that the rise of agentic AI will significantly increase the frequency, sophistication, and scale of cyberattacks.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, threat actors have used generative AI to write malware, craft phishing emails, and execute realistic social engineering schemes.
One notable case from January 2024 involved a finance employee who was deceived into transferring $25 million during a video call with AI-generated deepfakes of company executives.
Criminals have also found ways to bypass safety features in AI models using techniques such as prompt chaining, injection, and jailbreaking to generate malicious outputs.
While generative AI has already lowered the barrier to entry for cybercrime, the report highlights that agentic AI—capable of autonomously executing complex tasks—poses a far greater risk by automating time-consuming attacks like ransomware at scale.
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