A report published today, Wednesday, stated that hackers supported by Russia, China, and Iran are using tools from the Microsoft-backed program “Open A.I.” to perfect their skills and deceive their targets.
Microsoft said in its report that it tracked hacker groups associated with Russian military intelligence, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Chinese and North Korean governments while attempting to enhance their hacking campaigns using large language models.
These computer programs, often referred to as “artificial intelligence,” rely on massive amounts of text to generate responses that appear human.
The company announced this discovery at a time when it imposed a comprehensive ban on state-sponsored hacking groups from using its own artificial intelligence products.
Tom Burt, Deputy Vice President of Customer Security at Microsoft, said in an interview with Reuters before the report was published: “Regardless of whether there is any legal violation or violation of terms of service, we do not want those identified entities, whom we track and know are active threat entities of various kinds, to be able to use this technology.”
Russian, North Korean, and Iranian diplomats did not respond to messages requesting comments on these allegations.
Leo Bingyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the United States, stated that the embassy opposes “unfounded defamation and accusations against China” and calls for the safe, reliable, and controllable dissemination of artificial intelligence technology in order to “enhance the common well-being of humanity.”
The companies “Open AI” and “Microsoft” described the use of their artificial intelligence tools by hackers as being in an “early” and “progressive” stage.
