Australia warns of ‘unprecedented’ AI threat

"In recent weeks, new threats have emerged from the unintended actions of AI agents and model testing."Read: How one hacker used AI agents and a few thousand dollars to break into scores of sitesGlobal worries about the power of advanced AI tools are mounting after a string of hacking incidents involving models from leading developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic.The report documented a stark increase in cyber security incidents.

The Australian Signals Directorate issued more than 4,400 warnings about potentially malicious activity over the past year — an 80% increase compared to the prior 12 months.

"State-sponsored cyber actors continued to target Australian organisations primarily to gain access to sensitive or non-public information.""This activity extends beyond government networks, and includes critical infrastructure entities, private businesses and individuals."The report said hackers linked to China, Russia and North Korea had targeted Australia or its allies in recent times.Defence Minister Richard Marles said the nation could not ignore the AI revolution.

People need to engage," he told reporters.

"There's no turning the clock back in relation to that.

Malicious actors are using AI to find vulnerabilities in systems."Marles urged Australians to update their computers and "harden their systems".Governments and firms have in recent days been rushing to fix critical flaws in a programming language that runs a large share of the world's websites.

The vulnerability was found using a powerful model from OpenAI.

Australia warns of 'unprecedented' AI threat AFP | Updated 9 minutes ago | Australian Signals Directorate warnings about potentially malicious activity sees 80% increase over past year.