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Trellix researchers reported that criminal underground forums are selling malicious AI services that support cyberattacks across the attack lifecycle. One offering, APEX AI, can reportedly generate a detailed ransomware attack plan from a target domain and identify employees for potential spear-phishing campaigns.
The tools have moved beyond proof-of-concept discussions into commercial products with pricing tiers, update schedules, and customer reviews. Their automation may lower the expertise needed for sophisticated intrusions, accelerate reconnaissance and campaign preparation, and broaden the pool of actors capable of conducting ransomware and phishing operations.
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During the first half of 2026, Trellix researchers identified multiple malicious AI-related offerings on major criminal underground forums. The services supported functions including reconnaissance, exploit development, payload delivery, evasion, and post-compromise operations, and were marketed with commercial features such as pricing tiers, support, updates, and customer reviews.
APEX AI was advertised as a cyberattack tool that accepts a target domain and generates a step-by-step ransomware attack plan, including identification of employees for potential spear-phishing targeting.
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Security researchers reported that cybercriminals are increasingly commercializing offensive AI services, with one Russian-speaking actor, **Trim**, turning jailbreak techniques for Anthropic Claude into a paid penetration-testing platform. According to Cato CTRL, Trim first shared methods such as **Context Warming** and **Ghost Reset** to bypass Claude Opus safety controls, then later advertised **AI Pentest Checker**, a service that allegedly used a grey-market Claude API key obtained via Telegram. The platform reportedly combined jailbroken Claude Opus 4.8 and **GLM-5** with established tools including **Nuclei**, **ffuf**, **katana**, and **gitleaks** to automate web vulnerability scanning and generate PDF reports in minutes. A separate report from Trellix said another service, **MessiahGPT**, is being marketed on BreachForums and Telegram as an uncensored black-hat AI platform capable of generating ransomware, phishing kits, stealers, crypters, and rootkits on demand. The service reportedly offers free trial queries and low-cost cryptocurrency subscriptions without KYC, while similar offerings such as **DarkGPT** are also circulating in Russian-language channels. Researchers said the emergence of these tools shows that criminal **AI-as-a-service** is maturing into a commercial market, lowering barriers for attackers and likely increasing the volume of AI-assisted phishing, malware development, and automated reconnaissance.
Aug 21, 2026
Threat researchers and industry reports say cybercriminals are increasingly using **AI-powered tooling** to improve phishing, social engineering, credential theft, malware development, and activity inside compromised networks. Sophos found growing discussion across underground forums and marketplaces about large language models being used for multilingual lures, deepfake-enabled fraud, and other attack workflows, while ReliaQuest reported that AI has made attacks cheaper, faster to scale, easier to customize, and harder to detect without fundamentally changing core intrusion tradecraft. Proofpoint’s 2026 ransomware survey found **65%** of victim organizations believed AI increased attack effectiveness, with human interaction frequently enabling initial access through malicious links, attachments, and credential harvesting. Researchers said AI is now being applied to industrial-scale phishing, identity fabrication, phishing pages, web shells, credential harvesters, code padding to evade static analysis, and fake AI-branded downloads, while some criminals also worry automation could displace manual operators or degrade criminal product quality. Defenders were urged to reinforce core controls including **MFA**, passkeys, patching, behavioral detection, environment visibility, and defense-in-depth as AI-assisted attacks become more convincing and covert.
Aug 11, 2026
Underground operators are increasingly packaging generative AI into **criminal AI-as-a-service** offerings that support phishing, fraud, impersonation, malware modification, translation, and post-breach data analysis. Reporting on the market describes branded tools such as **FraudGPT**, **GhostGPT**, and **WormGPT**, but says many are little more than wrappers around legitimate models, stolen accounts, or hijacked API keys rather than fully autonomous hacking platforms. Researchers also highlighted a parallel market for deepfake-enabled abuse, including voice cloning, face swaps, fake selfies, and virtual camera injection used for KYC bypass, synthetic identity fraud, and onboarding scams. Sophos separately identified a malware development lab using AI tools including **Cursor** and **Claude Opus** to speed ransomware-related coding, payload refinement, and evasion testing. The framework reportedly generated Python-driven Rust and Go malware modules, customized **Cobalt Strike** profiles, Telegram-based command channels, Cloudflare Worker intermediaries for command-and-control traffic, code-injection scripts targeting legitimate Windows applications, and AI-assisted Active Directory reconnaissance. Researchers said the operation tested nearly 80 modules against more than 70 evasion methods across Sophos, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft defenses, reinforcing that the immediate risk is not autonomous AI malware but faster, cheaper, and more scalable attacker workflows.
Jun 29, 2026