Flagged AI-Powered Ransomware Was NYU’s Work: Cyber Bulletin

Anton Cherepanov, a researcher at the Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET, spends his days searching for new types of hacking threats. When he finds something, he said his employer shares it so companies and organizations can update their defenses.

On the morning of Aug. 26, he found something he’d never seen before.

Neither had his employer, which announced that it had discovered “the first known AI-power ransomware” later that day. Dubbed PromptLock, the ransomware – a piece of malicious software that hijacks computer systems until a price is paid – “may exfiltrate data, encrypt it, or potentially destroy it” using artificial intelligence, according ...