Cyber offence
AI Risk"General- purpose AI systems could uplift the cyber expertise of individuals, making it easier for malicious users to conduct effective cyber- attacks, as well as providing a tool that can be used in cyber defence. General- purpose AI systems can be used to automate and scale some types of cyber operations, such as social engineering attacks."
Overview
A source-backed snapshot of this AI risk.
Risk profile
How the MIT AI Risk Repository categorizes this risk.
Merged risk records
Source records unified into this canonical risk concept.
MITRISK-Bengio2024-49.01.02-839cab88 - Cyber offence
"General- purpose AI systems could uplift the cyber expertise of individuals, making it easier for malicious users to conduct effective cyber- attacks, as well as providing a tool that can be used in cyber defence. General- purpose AI systems can be used to automate and scale some types of cyber operations, such as social engineering attacks."
MITRISK-Bengio2025-60.01.03 - Cyber offence
"Attackers are beginning to use general- purpose AI for offensive cyber operations, presenting growing but currently limited risks. Current systems have demonstrated capabilities in low- and medium- complexity cybersecurity tasks, with state- sponsored threat actors actively exploring AI to survey target systems. Malicious actors of varying skill levels can leverage these capabilities against people, organisations, and critical infrastructure such as power grids."
Mitigations
Defenses that may help with related attacks.
Source evidence
Research source for this risk, when available.
Included resource
International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI
Original source
MIT AI Risk Repository
Open the public repository used for AI risk records and taxonomy fields.
