How Digital Crime Threatens Businesses and Critical Infrastructure | #cybercrime | #infosec

A growing number of economic sectors have long been highly digitalized and part of a complex international system in which infrastructures, services, and public and private actors are heavily interdependent. Within this scenario, any potential technological vulnerability can be exploited to carry out cyberattacks. However, the consequences of these events no longer stop at the mere theft of data; they now endanger the functioning of essential services that people rely on in daily life. For this reason, governments and institutions are increasingly taking cybercrime seriously. Today, cyberattacks can target hospitals, transportation companies, energy networks, or the retail sector, among others. For instance, as reported by the Financial Times, the technological infrastructure of the British company Synnovis—which provides blood analysis services to the UK healthcare system—was targeted last year. As a result of the attack, thousands of medical tests and scheduled surgeries were canceled or postponed. In at least two cases, the event had direct consequences on patients’ health. This also happens because many large companies tend to outsource their IT management—that is, the control and administration of their digital assets—to external providers. The supply chain, therefore, can be relatively long and distributed. In such a context, the links between different digital infrastructures may present weak spots, which hacker teams often exploit with relative ease to bypass security systems and carry out targeted cyberattacks.

There’s another factor to consider: the growing availability of tools based on artificial intelligence has drastically lowered the technical skills needed to carry out cybercrimes. One example is WormGPT, a language model launched in 2023 that was explicitly developed for criminal purposes. Unlike similar systems such as ChatGPT, which include safeguards to prevent misuse, WormGPT has no ethical or security filters: it is designed not to block malicious requests, such as generating malware, phishing emails, or instructions for cyberattacks. The stated goal of its developers was to provide a tool for users aiming to exploit artificial intelligence to automate cybercrime. Even more concerning is the spread of so-called AI agents—systems capable of performing complex actions autonomously on behalf of users. While traditional chatbots are limited to responding to commands or completing specific tasks, AI agents are designed to act independently, adapt to the digital environment in which they operate, and pursue goals continuously. Their potential for illicit use is therefore enormous.

As reported by the Financial Times, Microsoft itself claims that the spread of AI agents will increase significantly over the next two years, moving from an experimental phase to more deliberate use by users—with significant implications for cybersecurity. The growing circulation of AI agents and the risks tied to their unlawful use make the governance of these technologies a critical issue. In light of this scenario, delays and the likely postponement of the AI Act—the proposed European regulation that will govern the development and use of AI systems on the continent—do not help, as Wired Italia points out. “The speed of innovation in artificial intelligence has reached extraordinary levels. However, the impact of these advancements on global security will largely depend on geopolitical dynamics. Growing tensions between the United States and China, the EU’s ability to assert true ‘digital sovereignty’ in the face of American and Chinese tech dominance, and Russia’s willingness to continue tolerating criminal and espionage groups on its territory: these are the key challenges shaping the future of online security,” warns the Financial Times.