Security experts warn that as these AI agents become more sophisticated, attackers could potentially instruct them to “breach Company X” and have the AI determine and execute optimal attack strategies automatically, dramatically lowering the technical barrier for conducting cyber attacks. Perhaps most concerning was Operator’s ability to craft a convincing phishing email, where it impersonated an IT support professional named “Eric Hogan” and created a plausible pretext for the target to execute the script. In their experiment, researchers merely needed to claim authorization from a target before Operator willingly proceeded with potentially harmful actions, including identifying a specific employee, deducing their email address, and crafting a convincing phishing email. The demonstration revealed how Operator independently researched PowerShell commands before writing a script designed to gather sensitive system information. The resulting code included commands to collect operating system details, computer specifications, network configuration, and disk information—all valuable intelligence for an attacker establishing a foothold in a network. Cyber Security News is a Dedicated News Platform For Cyber News, Cyber Attack News, Hacking News & Vulnerability Analysis. OpenAI’s Operator, launched as a research preview on January 23, 2025, represents a new generation of AI tools that can interact with web pages and perform complex tasks with minimal human intervention. The script uses standard Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) commands to extract system information and save it to a text file in the user’s profile. With years of experience under his belt in Cyber Security, he is covering Cyber Security News, technology and other news. The PowerShell script created by Operator showcases how AI can now write functional malicious code without human expertise. AI-powered agents are evolving rapidly, offering enhanced capabilities to automate routine tasks, but researchers have discovered these same tools can be weaponized by malicious actors. The message urged execution to “ensure system integrity and performance” as part of “ongoing efforts”—language typical of legitimate IT communications.
This Cyber News was published on cybersecuritynews.com. Publication date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 11:40:06 +0000