AI making ransomware easier, more prevalent, committee hears

Artificial intelligence is making ransomware faster and easier to use as the online crime hits record levels, experts said at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. “We have tremendous concern about the future of AI and the direction it is allowing criminal actors to take, including more sophisticated deepfakes that ultimately form the first step in the chain of ransomware attacks,” Megan Stifel, chief strategy officer at the Institute for Security and Technology, said. “Unfortunately, the stakes keep getting higher,” she said. As attackers have become more complex,...