In a groundbreaking revelation, ESET malware researchers Anton Cherepanov and Peter Strycek have identified the emergence of PromptLock, a ransomware strain that utilizes artificial intelligence to carry out its malicious activities. While PromptLock has not yet been deployed in active cyber-attacks, the researchers have noted that it is currently in the development stages and poised to make its mark on the threat landscape.
Unlike previous instances where threat actors have employed generative AI tools to create malware, PromptLock stands out as the first ransomware to leverage an AI model as its core engine. According to Cherepanov’s findings shared in a LinkedIn post, PromptLock harnesses the gpt-oss:20b model from OpenAI through the Ollama API to dynamically generate new scripts in real-time.
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