FBI: AI Makes It Easier for Hackers to Generate Attacks

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/fbi-warns-about-ai-attacks

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

14 11 3 years ago

AI makes it easier for anyone to write software. So, yeah that makes sense, I don't think it warrants an article, and I think the FBI might just be fear mongering.

A list of things that make is easier for hackers to generate attacks:

* Vim

* GCC

* Google

* Intel's Documentation

* Math class

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

None of your list are recent changes. Changes to the ease, and therefore likely incidence/severity, of certain attacks are fairly normal things for the FBI to be concerned about.

LinuxBender2• 3 years ago

I believe they should have instead phrased it something along the line of "AI facilitates a new generation of Skiddies [1] lowering the bar even further to malicious behavior without much technical knowledge." or something along that line. They're not wrong.

Now a person with little or no technical knowledge can ask an LLM in plain English how to generate a more complex script that does {x+y+z} vs. at least having to know some degree of a scripting language or being limited to one of the well known and defended against skiddie tools that only perform {x}. A theoretical example would be a low-tech person taking full control of an internet connected car on a live highway. It's been done by technically advanced researchers [2] but now the bar to entry is now a lot lower and LLM's may likely keep up with the latest working exploits. That specific exploit was patched but there will always be new ones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiddies

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OobLb1McxnI [video][46 mins]

cheald• 3 years ago

On the other hand, GPTs often produce buggy code, and script kiddies are a lot less likely to be able to debug AI-generated code than they are to be successful running another human's hand-written exploit.

localplume• 3 years ago

It allows for even more targeted phishing/scams and lowers the bar of entry required to do this and the difficulty of doing this at scale. the human element is a pretty common entry point.

gdulli• 3 years ago

This argument is like saying that Napster didn't change anything because we'd previously been able to trade MP3s on FTP servers.

morkalork• 3 years ago

How do you feel about the 2nd amendment and bans on automatic weapons? /s

SirMaster• 3 years ago

Does AI make it easier to patch security holes and to identify attacks?

Why only focus on one side?

alfalfasprout• 3 years ago

I for one am excited to truly have intelligent "ICE" like from Gibson's Neuromancer (or in its more modern incarnation like in Cyberpunk 2077).

Madmallard• 3 years ago

gov scared of something that gives its population more power better work to undermine it!!!

FBI: AI Makes It Easier for Hackers to Generate Attacks

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