Continue reading:It was only a matter of time before artificial intelligence became a building block for cybercriminals. This week, researchers at ESET revealed what they are calling the first known AI-powered ransomware, a prototype dubbed PromptLock, which uses an open-weight AI model from OpenAI to generate malicious code on the fly.
Rather than carrying a static payload, PromptLock calls on the gpt-oss:20b model through the Ollama API, enabling it to write and execute Lua scripts directly on a compromised system. These scripts can scan directories, inspect files, exfiltrate selected data, and encrypt the results, all without the need for prepackaged binaries. That flexibility gives attackers a level of adaptability not commonly seen in traditional ransomware.
First AI-Powered Ransomware PromptLock Targets Windows, Linux and macOS
Follow us on Bluesky, Twitter (X), Mastodon and Facebook at @Hackread
hackread.com