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Journalism of Courage
One of the strongest use cases for today’s generative AI models is using them to write hundreds of lines of code in a matter of minutes. However, hackers are reportedly misusing these tools to generate malicious code, according to new research published on Tuesday, September 24.
Security researchers at HP found that hackers launched a malicious campaign targeting French speakers. As part of the campaign, the bad actors sought to access and record victims’ screens and keystrokes by infecting their devices with malware known as AsyncRAT.
This malware contained code that was written in VBScript and JavaScript programming languages with the help of generative AI tools, as per the report.
“The structure of the scripts, comments explaining each line of code, and the choice of native language function names and variables are strong indications that the threat actor used GenAI to create the malware,” it said.
The report by HP’s threat security team is significant since it shows that hackers are moving beyond using generative AI to lure victims through phishing attacks. “The activity shows how GenAI is lowering the bar for cybercriminals to infect endpoints,” HP Wolf Security said.
Other findings of the report include an increase in ChromeLoader campaigns, which direct victims to well-designed websites offering PDF converters tools through false advertising around popular search keywords.
Hackers are also smuggling malware through vector images in SVG format. SVG images open automatically in browsers and thus, any embedded malicious code is executed when the image is viewed, the report said.
