IT officials are concerned about the skyrocketing costs of AI-enhanced cyber security devices. In contrast, hackers are mostly eschewing AI because there aren’t many discussions about how to use it in cyber crime forums.
In a study of 400 IT security decision-makers conducted by security company Sophos, 80 % of respondents stated that generative AI will significantly lower the cost of surveillance equipment. This tracks with separate Gartner study that predicts international technology spend to rise by about 10 % this year, mainly due to ,  , upgrades.
According to Sophos research, 99 % of organizations list AI capabilities on their cybersecurity platform requirements, with the most popular use being to increase security. However, only 20 % of respondents cited this as their primary cause, indicating a lack of consensus on the necessity of AI tools in safety.
The leaders reported that it is difficult to calculate the extra cost of AI features in their protection tools. For instance, Microsoft controversially increased the price of ,  , by 45 % this month due to the inclusion of , .
On the other hand, 87 % of respondents think that the cost savings from AI-related efficiency will outweigh the additional expense, which may be why 65 % of respondents have already adopted security solutions with AI. The release of low-cost , AI type DeepSeek R1 , has generated hopes that the price of AI tools will immediately lower across the board.
Notice:  , HackerOne: 48 % of Security Professionals Believe AI Is Volatile
But price isn’t the only issue highlighted by Sophos ‘ experts. A significant 84 % of security officials worry that their team’s personnel will be compelled to shrink as a result of high aspirations for AI resources ‘ capabilities. 89 % of people are concerned that security threats could be introduced by flaws in the tools ‘ AI capabilities.
The Axiom researchers warned that “poor quality and poorly implemented AI models can unwittingly introduce significant cybersecurity risk of their own,” and that the adage “gag in, garbage out” is especially applicable to AI.
You might assume that there is more AI being used by digital thieves than they do.
According to independent studies from Sophos, protection concerns may be holding back cyber criminals from adopting Artificial as much as they hoped. Despite , scientist projections, the researchers found that AI is not yet widely used in attacks. To determine the , predominance of AI usage , within the hacking community, Eset examined articles on underwater forums.
Less than 150 articles about GPTs or significant language models were found by the researchers last year. More than 1, 000 articles on bitcoin and more than 600 threads on selling and buying community accesses were found in this context.
The majority of the threat actors on the crime forums we studied “don’t seem to be particularly enthusiastic or enthusiastic about conceptual AI, and we found no evidence of fraudsters using it to create new exploits or malware,” according to Sophos researchers.
One Russian-language violence site has had a devoted AI region since 2019, but it only has 300 fibers compared to more than 700 and 1, 700 fibers in the malware and network access areas, both. The researchers did point out that this could be considered “relatively quick development for a topic that has only gained traction in the last two years.”
However, a person admitted to speaking to a GPT for social factors in one article rather than to launch a cyberattack. Another user replied it is “bad for your opsec]operational safety ]”, more highlighting the group’s lack of trust in the technology.
Hackers are using AI for spamming, gathering knowledge, and social engineering
Articles and threads that mention AI apply it to methods such as spamming, open-source intelligence gathering, and social engineering, the latter includes the use of GPTs to , make hacking emails , and email texts.
In contrast to the same time in 2023, business email sacrifice attacks increased by 20 % in the second quarter of that year, according to security firm Vipre. AI was also at fault for two-fifths of those Standard attacks.
Other articles focus on , “jailbreaking” , , where versions are instructed to pass protection with a properly constructed fast. Since 2023, there have been numerous mafic chatbots made especially for crime. While types like ,  , have been in use, newer ones like as ,  , are also emerging.
Only a few “primitive and low-quality” attempts to create malware, attack tools, and exploits using AI were spotted by Sophos research on the forums. Similar incidents are commonplace; in June, HP intercepted a malicious email campaign that was “highly likely to have been written with the aid of GenAI.”
Conversations about AI-generated code frequently included sarcasm or criticism. For example, on a post containing allegedly hand-written code, one user responded,” Is this written with ChatGPT or something…this code plainly won’t work”. According to Sophos researchers, the general consensus was that using AI to create malware was for “lazy and/or low-skilled individuals looking for shortcuts.”
Interestingly, some posts mentioned creating AI-enabled malware in an aspirational way, indicating that, once the technology becomes available, they would like to use it in attacks. The world’s first autonomous C2 powered by AI was acknowledged in a post titled” This is still just a product of my imagination for now.”
Some users are also automating routine tasks, according to the researchers. However, it seems that the majority of people don’t rely on it for more complex things.