Explore the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. Stay informed on AI-driven security trends, tools, and threats in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) describes computer systems that perform tasks such as recognizing patterns, making predictions, understanding language, or generating content. In security reporting, the term commonly includes machine-learning models used for detection and analysis, as well as generative AI applications that produce text, code, images, or other outputs.
AI can help analyze security telemetry, prioritize vulnerabilities, and support investigations, but its outputs can be wrong or manipulated. Important attack surfaces include prompt injection that steers an application into unintended actions, sensitive data being exposed through prompts or model outputs, and excessive permissions granted to AI systems that use external tools. Models can also be degraded by poisoned training data or evaded with carefully crafted inputs. Practitioners should protect training and operational data, limit model access and tool permissions, test for adversarial behavior, and require appropriate human validation before high-impact decisions.
Researchers Say PromptSpy Automates Persistence on Infected DevicesA newly discovered Android malware strain, "PromptSpy," is using Google's Gemini generative artificial intelligence model to automate part of its persistence mechanism, marking what researchers describe as the second known case of AI-driven mobile malware.
Also: AI, Machine Identity Risks; Europe’s Digital Sovereignty PushIn this week's panel, four ISMG editors examined how cybercriminals may be turning on each other, what security leaders are really saying about machine identities and AI risk, and how shifting U.S.-Europe dynamics are reshaping technology resilience and digital sovereignty.
Analysts Urge Mandatory Guardrails on AI Agents, Identity and PrivilegeSecurity leaders are pressing Treasury to embed enforceable guardrails - covering adversarial testing, AI inventory, identity privilege mapping and real-time monitoring - into its forthcoming financial-sector AI guidance as deepfake fraud, data poisoning and autonomous agent risks escalate.
Series A Led by Bain Capital Ventures Targets Autonomous Remediation PlatformCogent Security secured $42 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered platform. Backed by Bain Capital Ventures, the company plans to triple staff, enhance model accuracy and scale its agent-based architecture to help enterprises automate remediation and counter AI-driven cyberattacks.
Also: EU Bans AI Tools, Notepad++ Secures Updater, Apple Patches iOS Zero-DayThis week, Cambodia shuttered 200 scam centers. EU Parliament banned AI tools. Canada Goose disputed a ShinyHunters leak. Notepad++ patched an updater flaw. Apple fixed a decades-old iOS zero-day. BeyondTrust and Dell patched critical flaws under active exploitation.
AI-powered ransomware compresses attacks from weeks to minutes. Michael Villar, director of field security technology at Akamai, says banks need AI-driven segmentation to contain intruders fast, limit lateral movement and protect sensitive data before extortion begins.
Also: Coinbase's Agentic AI Wallets, $1M Fraud IndictmentThis week, Paxful's $4M AML penalty, Coinbase's agentic AI wallets, a $1M fraud indictment, a 20-year $200M Ponzi sentence, laundering from the $200M Mixin hack, a Binance France home invasion attempt, insider betting charges in Israel and lost seized bitcoin in South Korea.
$300M Acquisition Strengthens Palo Alto Networks' XDR and AI Governance PlatformPalo Alto Networks plans to acquire Koi Security for $300 million to address growing AI-driven endpoint risks. The startup's technology adds deep visibility into AI agents plug-ins and nonbinary code, enhancing Cortex XDR and Prisma AIRS as enterprises confront a growing unmanaged AI attack surface.
Founder, CEO Martin Mao: AI-Driven Remediation, Data Optimization at Core of DealPalo Alto Networks' acquisition of Chronosphere will help unify observability and security operations. The integration with Cortex AgentiX and Cortex XSIAM aims to automate remediation, optimize telemetry pipelines and help enterprises manage soaring data volumes from cloud-native and AI workloads.
Commands Push Lasting Preferences Into AI AssistantsMicrosoft researchers found companies embedding hidden commands in "summarize with AI" buttons to plant lasting brand preferences in assistants' memory. The tactic, dubbed AI recommendation poisoning, exploits persistent memory features to bias future responses.
Researchers Say AI Prompt Injection Has Emerged As a Dangerous New Class of AttacksThe large language model industry has mostly treated prompt injection attacks as a risk analogous to traditional web server prompt injection attacks. Researchers now say feeding rogue instructions to an artificial intelligence system merits its own classification as "promptware."
Researchers Say AI Prompt Injection Has Emerged As a Dangerous New Class of AttacksThe large language model industry has mostly treated prompt injection attacks as a risk analogous to traditional web server prompt injection attacks. Researchers now say feeding rogue instructions to an artificial intelligence system merits its own classification as "promptware."
Fraud Specialist David Barnhardt on Addressing Authentication Risks of Agentic AIFinancial institutions are racing to deploy AI agents that can initiate payments, approve transactions and freeze accounts. But traditional authentication frameworks assume there's a human on the other end. As agentic AI use grows, banks are facing an authentication crisis that demands new controls.
Series C Funding Round Focuses on Secrets Remediation, Agent Governance ExpansionBacked by a $50 million Series C, GitGuardian plans to accelerate U.S. expansion and enhance secrets detection remediation and non-human identity controls as AI agents multiply across enterprises, increasing exposure to credential abuse and lateral movement.
As Innovation Sandbox Turns 21, AI-Based Solutions Dominate Annual ContestNext month in San Francisco, the Innovation Sandbox at RSAC Conference will celebrate its 21st year of choosing key emerging solutions in cybersecurity. Past winners and finalists range from EDR and XDR giant SentinelOne in 2014 to cloud security phenom Wiz in 2021.
AI chatbots rank as the number-one health tech hazard in 2026, followed by "digital darkness" and legacy medical device cyber issues, said Rob Schluth and Scott Luney, technology and security experts at patient safety group ECRI Institute, which compiles an annual top 10 list. They explained why.
GrokAI Non-Consensual Sexual Imagery Raises Official HacklesEuropean regulatory pressure on Elon Musk's X social media network intensified this week with new probes into potential breaches of privacy roles by Grok AI chatbot. X claims to have stopped Grok from outputting the offending images, but apparently the chatbot still generates them.
Why Reducing Data Volume Matters More Than Ever for SOCs and CISOsData minimization is often perceived as a constraint on innovation. In reality, it is the ultimate enabler of resilience. It reduces the impact of breaches, weakens ransomware leverage, improves SOC efficiency and secures the AI frontier.
AI Fumbles, Not Hackers, Pose Next Shutdown Threat by 2028: GartnerA misconfigured artificial intelligence system could do what hackers have tried and failed to accomplish: shut down an advanced economy's critical infrastructure. The warning centers on scenarios where AI autonomously shuts down vital services, misinterprets sensor data or triggers unsafe actions.