Group-IB announced the release of its first whitepaper, Weaponized AI: Inside the criminal ecosystem fueling the fifth wave of cybercrime, revealing how AI cybercrime is transforming digital threats. The report detailed the rapid rise of AI adoption by cybercriminals and its impact on global digital security.

The research reported a 371% surge in dark web forum posts mentioning AI since 2019, with replies increasing ten-fold (1199%). Analysts found that AI is now central to the criminal ecosystem, turning complex skills like phishing, impersonation, and malware development into on-demand services available for purchase.

Group-IB also revealed that AI crimeware is increasingly accessible through subscription models. These include:

• Dark LLMs capable of producing unsafe or unrestricted content.
• Jailbreak frameworks allowing AI models to bypass safety filters.
• Deepfake-as-a-service, offering synthetic identities, cloned voices, and biometric datasets.

The study reported that interest peaked after the release of ChatGPT and GPT-4, with over 300,000 replies on AI-related posts in 2023. Craig Jones, former INTERPOL Director of Cybercrime, stated, “AI has industrialized cybercrime. What once required skilled operators and time can now be bought, automated, and scaled globally.”

Group-IB emphasized that AI-enabled attacks leave little forensic trace, making detection harder. Dmitry Volkov, CEO of Group-IB, reported that intelligence-led strategies combining AI-driven detection, fraud prevention, and visibility into underground ecosystems are critical to counter this evolving threat.

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