Microsoft said Wednesday it had detected and disrupted instances of US adversaries — chiefly Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
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Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
and North Korea
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
and to a lesser extent Russia and China — using or attempting to exploit generative artificial intelligence developed by the company and its business partner to mount or research offensive cyber operations.
The techniques Microsoft observed, in collaboration with its partner OpenAI, represent an emerging threat and were neither "particularly novel or unique," the Redmond, Washington, company said in a blog post.
However,
you can observe a lot just by watching...
the blog does offer insight into how US geopolitical rivals have been using large-language models to expand their ability to more effectively breach networks and conduct influence operations.
Microsoft said the "attacks" detected all involved large-language models the partners own and said it was important to expose them publicly even if they were "early-stage, incremental moves."
Cybersecurity firms have long used machine learning on defense, principally to detect anomalous behavior in networks. But criminals and offensive hackers use it as well, and the introduction of large-language models led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT upped that game of cat-and-mouse.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and Wednesday’s announcement coincided with its release of a report noting that generative AI is expected to enhance malicious social engineering, leading to more sophisticated deepfakes and voice cloning. This could be a threat to democracy in a year when over 50 countries will conduct elections, magnifying disinformation.
Here are some examples Microsoft provided. In each case, it said all generative AI accounts and assets of the named groups were disabled:
• The North Korean cyberespionage group known as Kimsuky has used the models to research foreign think tanks that study the country, and to generate content likely to be used in spear-phishing hacking campaigns.
• Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has used large-language models to assist in social engineering, troubleshooting software errors, and even studying how intruders might evade detection in a compromised network. That includes generating phishing emails "including one pretending to come from an international development agency and another attempting to lure prominent feminists to an attacker-built website on feminism." The AI helps accelerate and boost email production.
• The Russian GRU military intelligence unit known as Fancy Bear has used the models to research satellite and radar technologies that may relate to the war in Ukraine.
• The Chinese cyberespionage group known as Aquatic Panda — which targets a broad range of industries, higher education, and governments from La Belle France to Malaysia — has interacted with the models "in ways that suggest a limited exploration of how LLMs can augment their technical operations."
• The Chinese group Maverick Panda, which has targeted US defense contractors among other sectors for more than a decade, had interactions with large-language models suggesting it was evaluating their effectiveness as a source of information "on potentially sensitive topics, high profile individuals, regional geopolitics, US influence, and internal affairs."
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