#cybercrime

#cybercrime

AI isn't just helping white-collar workers be more productive - it's also aiding white-collar criminals. Anthropic said in a Wednesday report that it detected and thwarted cybercriminals attempting to carry out hacks using the startup's AI tool, Claude. While AI has been used in hacking efforts for years, Anthropic said advances in the technology mean it's being used to "perform" cyberattacks throughout the entire operation - and with smaller teams.

"Agentic AI systems are being weaponized." That's one of the first lines of Anthropic's new Threat Intelligence report, out today, which details the wide range of cases in which Claude - and likely many other leading AI agents and chatbots - are being abused. First up: "Vibe-hacking." One sophisticated cybercrime ring that Anthropic says it recently disrupted used Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding agent, to extort data from at least 17 different organizations around the world within one month.

Interpol's latest clampdown on cybercrime resulted in 1,209 arrests across the African continent, from ransomware crooks to business email compromise (BEC) scammers, the agency says. Operation Serengeti 2.0 took place between June and August this year, and the global policing coordinator confirmed today that it seized $97.4 million gained from cybercriminal enterprises across the continent. About $37 million was recovered in Angola, where authorities shut down 25 cryptocurrency mining centers allegedly run by 60 Chinese nationals using illegal power stations to validate blockchain transactions.

There are limitations to what we can see with this data, but what we have so far is accurate. If anything I think it's undercounting the scale of the problem.

ShinyHunters, a hacker collective formed in 2020, operates primarily for financial gain by stealing data and selling it on the dark web.

"The BADBOX 2.0 botnet compromised over 10 million uncertified devices running Android's open-source software (Android Open Source Project), which lacks Google's security protections."

The Paris police’s cybercrime brigade continues its crackdown on cyber criminals, recently arresting four suspects linked to BreachForums and previous high-profile cyber incidents.

Zelocchi documented every threat and handed evidence to U.S. Marshals, refusing to cave to the cybercriminals who sought to eliminate him and steal his Bitcoin wallet.

At the time, the FBI recognized there was a significant need to shift their hiring practices to really focus on people with cyber skill sets, because it wasn't just about cybercrime, but also terrorism, counter intelligence and criminal investigations. We needed agents who had more of a technical discipline to help with that.