German authorities warn of rise in AI-powered cyberattacks

German authorities warned Monday of a growing threat from AI-powered cyberattacks as artificial intelligence models become increasingly capable.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) said they expected the cyberthreat landscape to worsen.

Large-scale attacks are becoming easier to carry out as barriers to entry fall, the domestic intelligence agency told German business daily Handelsblatt.

AI can support the reconnaissance, automation, and scaling of various types of cyber operations.

The BSI said it also expected the misuse of AI to increase. Models developed by leading companies demonstrated “great potential for identifying vulnerabilities” last year, a spokesperson told the newspaper.

Such models are now also capable of independently exploiting identified vulnerabilities, the agency said.

High computing requirements and costs have so far limited criminals’ access to the most powerful models, but this barrier is expected to decline as hardware becomes more affordable, according to the BSI.

Both authorities, however, also highlighted the technology’s defensive benefits.

AI is “not only a tool for attackers, but also an indispensable component of modern defense strategies,” according to the BfV.