{"id":188550,"date":"2026-02-18T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/threat-groups-using-ai-to-speed-up-and-scale-cyberattacks\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T12:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:00:09","slug":"threat-groups-using-ai-to-speed-up-and-scale-cyberattacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/threat-groups-using-ai-to-speed-up-and-scale-cyberattacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Threat groups using AI to speed up and scale cyberattacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Threat groups using AI to speed up and scale cyberattacks<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/threat-groups-ai-speed-scale-cyberattacks\/812439\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-18 11:38:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cybersecuritydive.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Hackers are using ransomware to accelerate the timeline for cyberattacks, moving on average four times faster than just a year ago, according to an incident response report\u00a0released Tuesday by Palo Alto Networks.\u00a0
\nAI is being used for reconnaissance, phishing and scripting, and operational execution in many cases. In the most efficient attacks, groups exfiltrate data just 72 minutes after initial access.\u00a0
\nIdentity is a primary element in attacks, showing up in 90% of incident response cases. Threat groups are increasingly using stolen identities and tokens to gain entry without triggering security warnings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce an attacker has legitimate credentials, they\u2019re not breaking in, they\u2019re logging in,\u201d Sam Rubin, a senior vice president at Palo Alto Networks\u2019 Unit 42, told Cybersecurity Dive. \u201cWhen an adversary blends into normal traffic, detection becomes incredibly challenging for even mature defenders.\u201d
\nThe report is based on analysis of more than 750 incident response cases across the globe that involved Unit 42 analysts and researchers.\u00a0
\nThe report analyzed how threat groups are using AI to operate with unprecedented speed and scale, running simultaneous attacks and taking advantage of known software flaws to go after vulnerable targets before those victims can take preventative measures.\u00a0
\nFor example, attackers are now targeting vulnerabilities within 15 minutes of a CVE disclosure.
\nHackers are also using AI to run reconnaissance and initial access attempts against hundreds of targets at the same time.\u00a0
\nThe report shows attackers are abusing trusted integrations to launch attacks against software-as-a-service applications. Nearly one-quarter of incidents involved these types of attacks over the past year.\u00a0
\nThese integrations provide legitimate, privileged access, making exploitation of these trusted connections more difficult to defend.
\n\u201cThis is a structural shift in supply chain risk that moves beyond vulnerable code to the abuse of trusted links,\u201d Rubin said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Threat groups using AI to speed up and scale cyberattacks https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/threat-groups-ai-speed-scale-cyberattacks\/812439\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-18 11:38:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/imgproxy.divecdn.com\/tJcQND7y1Rub4sehryhr-z_s9Swzf3gMNfyNZxasokU\/g:ce\/rs:fit:770:435\/Z3M6Ly9kaXZlc2l0ZS1zdG9yYWdlL2RpdmVpbWFnZS9HZXR0eUltYWdlcy04MDgxNTc4MzIuanBn.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24,25],"class_list":["post-188550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-phishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188550"}],"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=188550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188552,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188550\/revisions\/188552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}