AI tools becoming major threat to cyber security

New Delhi: Artificial Intelligence may be transforming lives of millions across the globe, but the risk it poses to the digital systems far surpasses the benefits it brings.

We generally see job loss as the most visible undesirable consequence of adopting AI models by companies but threat to cyber security from the use of AI by criminals is really disconcerting.

AI models are becoming more dangerous for new kind of attacks. By the use of AI tools, criminals can makes attacks faster, cheaper, and much more convincing. They use AI to scan code and find vulnerabilities in minutes. They can inject in the system self-mutating malware that changes its own code to avoid antivirus detection.

Moreover AI tools can clone voice so fast and accurately that 30 seconds of audio is enough to clone your family member’s or friend’s voice for phishing calls.

The task of ten hackers can now be performed by one person with AI tools. As many as 10,000 targeted attacks can be launched by cyber criminals in one go. AI quickly sorts through stolen data to find Aadhaar numbers, bank details, or other personal data which canbe used by anyone to blackmail people.

These are the reasons companies are investing heavily in strengthening their cyber defences as artificial‑intelligence models become more dangerous with each passing day.

At the Qatar Economic Forum in New York, Citigroup Chief Executive Jane Fraser said firms worldwide were engaged in a “tsunami of patching” to shore up systems against the release of advanced models such as Anthropic’s Mythos, according to multiple reports.

“AI from companies, including Google and Anthropic, has inadvertently hacked into other companies since the beginning of 2026, prompting warnings from executives including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei to slow the pace of AI development,” said an agency report.

Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon resigned from his role earlier this month over concerns of AL risks. He wrote,”They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives” .

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt” If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately,” Coxon said in his resignation post.

Microsoft Chairman and CEO S Satya Nadella said expressed similar kind of concern when he said that while powerful AI capabilities were advancing with a fast pace, important questions about controlling the technology were yet to be resolved.

Speaking at the Ideas4India forum in Seattle on September 17, he said human control over AI must be there always, and there must be international norms involving governments and technology companies, with an understanding between the United States and China as an essential starting point.

—India News Stream