US officials say AI could facilitate hacking, scamming and money laundering

Law enforcement and intelligence officials in the United States warned about artificial intelligence (AI) advancements leading to the facilitation of cybercrimes, such as hacking, scamming and money laundering, according to a report from Reuters.

At the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University in Manhattan on Jan. 9, Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, said that AI helps reduce the tech-savviness needed to pull off such crimes.

However, Joyce also pointed out that AI can be a great tool to help U. S. authorities more efficiently hunt down such illegal activity.

Also speaking at the conference was James Smith, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ New York field office, who said that the FBI has already witnessed an uptick in cyber breaches due to AI lowering the technicality threshold.

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U. S. Brooklyn attorney Breon Peace was another speaker who highlighted the rapid emergence of AI-generated “deep fakes” that could trick systems that typically prevent cybercrimes.

Jimmy Su, chief security officer of Binance, spoke to Cointelegraph in an interview last year, expressing this exact sentiment: that AI deep fakes are getting better at spoofing Know Your Customer controls. He said, “AI will overcome [them] over time. So, it’s not something that we can always rely on.”

Data from SumSub revealed that there has been a 10x increase in deep fakes across all industries globally from 2022 to 2023.

Last year, many major public figures, including actor Tom Hanks and the popular YouTuber MrBeast, had to denounce unauthorized deep fakes of themselves made to sell a product.