{"id":186643,"date":"2026-02-12T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/ai-is-already-making-online-swindles-easier-it-could-get-much-worse\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:25:14","slug":"ai-is-already-making-online-swindles-easier-it-could-get-much-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/ai-is-already-making-online-swindles-easier-it-could-get-much-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is already making online swindles easier. It could get much worse."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/02\/12\/1132386\/ai-already-making-online-swindles-easier\/\">AI is already making online swindles easier. It could get much worse.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/02\/12\/1132386\/ai-already-making-online-swindles-easier\/\">https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/02\/12\/1132386\/ai-already-making-online-swindles-easier\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-12 06:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.technologyreview.com\">www.technologyreview.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here are six key points summarizing the article:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>PromptLock Discovery<\/strong>: Researchers Cherepanov and Str\u00fd\u010dek unveiled PromptLock, an AI-powered ransomware they believed demonstrated the potential for highly flexible malware attacks.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Clarification from NYU Team<\/strong>: The following day, a team from New York University claimed the ransomware was merely a research project, designed to demonstrate the automation of a ransomware campaign rather than an actual attack in the wild.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Real World Threats<\/strong>: The discussion highlighted ongoing issues, emphasizing that while PromptLock was a research effort, real cybercriminals are increasingly using AI to lower the barriers to launching attacks.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Imminent Risks<\/strong>: Lorenzo Cavallaro, a computer science professor, stated that it&#8217;s &#8220;a sheer reality&#8221; that cyberattacks will now become more common and effective due to AI tools.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>AI Misuse Beyond Malware<\/strong>: Experts suggest focusing on immediate risks like deepfake technologies and AI speeding up scam efforts, highlighting more current and pressing threats than purely AI-generated ransomware.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Scam and Spam Explosion<\/strong>: Since the rise of tools like ChatGPT, generative AI has been heavily utilized to create spam and sophisticated targeted email attacks, increasing from 7.6% to 14% in the first half of 2025 according to research from Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Barracuda Networks.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI is already making online swindles easier. It could get much worse. https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/02\/12\/1132386\/ai-already-making-online-swindles-easier\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":186644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/opener-final1_social.jpg?resize=1200,600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-186643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-generative-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186645,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186643\/revisions\/186645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}