South Korea has reportedly seen evidence of artificial intelligence involvement in recent cyberattacks on banks.

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As the Financial Times (FT) reported, President Lee Jae Myung said on Tuesday (Oct. 6) that hacks had revealed user data at seven financial firms, with indications of AI use in some of these incidents “causing considerable public concern and anxiety.”

According to the report, the hackers seem to have gone after less secure systems used by third parties, instead of the banks’ core payment networks. In one instance, a hacker bypassed identity checks on a portal where loan brokers monitored customers’ applications, exposing the details of roughly 25,000 Shinhan Bank customers.

While no money has been reported stolen, one official with knowledge of the situation described it as “a completely new kind of crisis,” the report added.

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“Generative AI was used to identify vulnerabilities and launch an attack. It’s not that South Korea has weak cybersecurity— this sort of thing could happen anywhere.”

The FT added comments from Moon Jong-hyun, head of Genians Security Center, who said last week that it seems as if Artex — a Chinese-language, open-source tool that uses AI to spot and test computer system vulnerabilities — had been employed in some of the attacks.

In a LinkedIn post, he likened Artex to a kitchen knife that could either be used by a chef or “as a weapon by a criminal,” the report added.

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