The Era of AI-Generated Ransomware Has Arrived

While such activity so far does not appear to be the norm across the ransomware ecosystem, the findings represent a stark warning.

“There are definitely some groups that are using AI to aid with the development of ransomware and malware modules, but as far as Recorded Future can tell, most aren’t,” says Allan Liska, an analyst for the security firm Recorded Future who specializes in ransomware. “Where we do see more AI being used widely is in initial access.”

Separately, researchers at the cybersecurity company ESET this week claimed to have discovered the “first known AI-powered ransomware,” dubbed PromptLock. The researchers say the malware, which largely runs locally on a machine and uses an open source AI model from OpenAI, can “generate malicious Lua scripts on the fly” and uses these to inspect files the hackers may be targeting, steal data, and deploy encryption. ESET believes the code is a proof-of-concept that has seemingly not been deployed against victims, but the researchers emphasize that it illustrates how cybercriminals are starting to use LLMs as part of their toolsets.

“Deploying AI-assisted ransomware presents certain challenges, primarily due to the large size of AI models and their high computational requirements. However, it’s possible that cybercriminals will find ways to bypass these limitations,” ESET malware researchers Anton Cherepanov and Peter Strycek, who discovered the new ransomware, wrote in an email to WIRED. “As for development, it is almost certain that threat actors are actively exploring this area, and we are likely to see more attempts to create increasingly sophisticated threats.”

Although PromptLock hasn’t been used in the real world, Anthropic’s findings further underscore the speed with which cybercriminals are moving to building LLMs into their operations and infrastructure. The AI company also spotted another cybercriminal group, which it tracks as GTG-2002, using Claude Code to automatically find targets to attack, get access into victim networks, develop malware, and then exfiltrate data, analyze what had been stolen, and develop a ransom note.

In the last month, this attack impacted “at least” 17 organizations in government, healthcare, emergency services, and religious institutions, Anthropic says, without naming any of the organizations impacted. “The operation demonstrates a concerning evolution in AI-assisted cybercrime,” Anthropic’s researchers wrote in their report, “where AI serves as both a technical consultant and active operator, enabling attacks that would be more difficult and time-consuming for individual actors to execute manually.”