Hackers hijack AI accounts and servers to fuel new cybercrime boom

London | Illicit access to AI models and computing power is fast becoming the hottest commodity in the cybercriminal underworld, as hackers seek to harness expensive large language models for extortion, warfare and espionage.

John Hultquist, chief analyst for Google Threat Intelligence Group, said the cybersecurity unit had observed a major increase in so-called LLM-jacking this year, including the sale of stolen login credentials for public artificial intelligence tools and the theft of computing resources by groups that want to run their own models for free.

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.