She copied ID cards and extorted data. Hackers from North Korea recruited AI

The North Korean Hackers group Kimsuki conducted an attack to extort confidential data from South Korean military agencies, using copies of official ID cards generated by artificial intelligence (AI) – Security Center (GSC) informed the geniance.

According to the report of the GSC Institute, dealing with cybersecurity, hackers carried out a type of attack in July Spear-Phishing, consisting in sending messages from e-mail addresses reminiscent of the addresses of trusted persons or institutions to extort information.

In the news, hackers asked for verification of attached identifiers for civilian army employees. Correspondence, however, was burdened with malicious code, capable of obtaining data from recipient's devices.

The report did not reveal which unit associated with the army fell victim to the attack.

According to GSC, AI used AI to create false documents, which can generate realistic but false images. File metadata analysis indicated directly to the OPENAI GPT-4O and CHATGPT models. According to the Institute's experts, hackers managed to bypass the security of AI platforms, which block the creation of copies of official documents, asking for creating a “sample pattern” instead of direct reproduction of the actual document.

The report emphasizes the growing threat associated with the use of artificial intelligence to more and more sophisticated activities by North Korea. “Although AI services are powerful tools that increase productivity, they also pose a potential risk when they are used improperly, posing cybernetic threats at the national security level,” it was stated in the report.

Krzysztof Pawliszak (PAP)

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