ESET said on Aug. 26 that it had discovered the first AI-powered ransomware, which it dubbed PromptLocker, in the wild. But it seems that wasn't the case: New York University (NYU) researchers have claimed responsibility for the malware ESET found.
It turns out PromptLocker is actually an experiment called "Ransomware 3.0" conducted by researchers at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. A spokesperson for the school told Tom's Hardware a Ransomware 3.0 sample was uploaded to VirusTotal, a malware analysis platform, and then picked up by the ESET researchers by mistake.
