Hackers are increasingly using public blockchains to store instructions for malware, combining artificial intelligence with technology designed to make data difficult to alter or remove as cybercrime targeting the cryptocurrency industry continues to grow.
Malicious instructions and infrastructure information written onto blockchains have increased 440% since the emergence of high-capacity Chinese open-source AI models without restrictions on generating malicious code, Chainalysis said in research published Thursday. The average increased from 2.06 malicious blockchain writes a day to 11.1 in less than a year, while the increase measured over the past 12 months was 420%.
