Top U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials said on Tuesday that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) could facilitate hacking, fraud and money laundering by lowering the technical barriers to entry. Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the U.S. National Security Agency, said at the International Cybersecurity Conference held at Fordham University that people who may not have the relevant technical capabilities themselves may now use AI guidance to carry out hacking operations and complete intrusions that they were unable to complete in the past.
Joyce said this would make criminals who use artificial intelligence more efficient and more dangerous.
However, he also added that on the other hand, advances in AI can also help US authorities detect malicious activities.
James Smith, assistant director of the FBI's New York Division, also said at the conference that the FBI has observed an increase in network intrusions as artificial intelligence lowers the technical barriers to carrying out network intrusions.
At this international cybersecurity conference, two senior U.S. federal prosecutors also pointed out that artificial intelligence may stimulate the growth of some financial crimes.
Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Manhattan, said artificial intelligence can help people who don’t speak English generate credible-sounding messages in an attempt to defraud potential victims of their money.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Brooklyn Breon Peace pointed out that "deep fake" images and videos generated by artificial intelligence can be used to deceive banks' security systems designed to verify customer identities to prevent money laundering.
"This, in turn, will allow criminals and terrorists to open accounts at scale and undermine the control systems we have developed over decades," Pease said.
In fact, in the past year or so, as people's understanding of AI technology has increased and its application has been widely used, cases of AI technology being used by criminals have become more and more frequent, which has attracted great attention from many countries around the world.
AI criminal methods are often more sophisticated and difficult to identify than traditional methods, thus increasing the difficulty of anti-crime. The emergence and popularization of generative AI are also making the network security situation more complex.