Alarming rise in AI-related cybercrime in first half of 2024

Hong Kong SAR –
Media OutReach Newswire – August 27, 2024 –
Trend Micro Incorporated (Model: 4704; Toronto Stock Exchange: 4704) a global leader in cybersecurity, warned today that threat actors have rebounded from recent law enforcement efforts to unleash a new wave of attacks leveraging AI and other techniques.

Read the report »Pushing the Outer Boundaries: Trend Micro 2024 Mid-Year Cybersecurity Threat Report: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk/security/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/roundup/pushing-the-outer-limits-trend-micro-2024-midyear-cybersecurity-threat-report

Tony Lee, Head of Consulting at Trend Micro Hong Kong and Macau: “Trend Micro blocked more than 75.9 billion threats for its customers in the first half of the year, but there is no time to waste. As malicious actors begin to embrace AI as a tool, the industry must respond in kind, building security strategies to keep pace with the evolving threat landscape. It’s an arms race we cannot afford to lose.”

As detailed in the mid-year report, the threat from malicious actors remains acute despite successful law enforcement actions against LockBit (Operation Cronos), malware dropper networks (Operation Endgame), and unauthorized use of Cobalt Strike (Operation Morpheus).

Criminal and misuse of AI is a major concern. Trend Micro has observed malicious actors
hide malware in legitimate AI software, in the exploitation of criminal LLMs and even
sell jailbreak offers as a serviceThese allow cybercriminals to trick generative AI bots into answering questions that go against their own policies, primarily to develop malware and social engineering lures.

Also in the first half of 2024, cybercriminals increased the number of deepfake offers to carry out virtual kidnapping scams, carry out
targeted BEC identity theft fraud and bypass KYC checks. The Trojan malware has
has been developed to collect biometric data to help with the latter.

Other highlights for the first half of 2024 include:

LockBit remains the most widespread ransomware family despite disruptions from law enforcement, and has even developed a new variant,
LockBit-NG-Development
Cybercriminals have taken advantage of major events such as the Olympics and national elections to launch targeted attacks.
Notable APT campaigns have exploited geopolitical tensions, such as
Land of Lusca campaign around China-Taiwan relations
Actors aligned with the State
used sophisticated techniques to compromise routers connected to the Internet for anonymization of targeted attacks
Various groups have targeted cloud environments, applications and services by abusing exposed credentials, suspended resources, vulnerabilities and
even legitimate (but poorly configured tools)