First AI-powered ransomware spotted, but it's not active – yet

ESET malware researchers Anton Cherepanov and Peter Strycek have discovered what they describe as the "first known AI-powered ransomware," which they named PromptLock. The good news, according to the duo, who detailed PromptLock in a series of social media posts and screenshots on Tuesday, is that the malware doesn't appear to be fully functional — yet. The Register has learned that the AI-powered malware, which ESET named PromptLock, was uploaded to VirusTotal by a team at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. After this story was published, the Tandon team alerted us that they had uploaded the proof-of-concept, which they named Ransomware 3.0, during testing, and ESET’s Anton Cherepanov and Peter Strycek later discovered it without knowing its academic origins. “While it is the first to be AI-powered, the ransomware prototype is a proof-of-concept that is non-functional outside of the contained lab environment,” the academics said. "Although multiple indicators suggest the sample is a proof-of-concept (PoC) or work-in-progress rather than fully operational malware deployed in the wild, we believe it is our responsibility to inform the cybersecurity community about such developments," Cherepanov and Strycek wrote. However, despite the lack of in-the-wild PromptLock infections, the discovery does show that AI has made cybercriminals' attack chains that much easier, and should serve as a warning to defenders. The PromptLock malware uses Open AI's gpt-oss-20b model, which is on...