In the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape, Microsoft has introduced various new features in Windows 11 designed to protect users from modern workplace threats. Among such features, Smart App Control (SAC) changes how Windows devices handle, and occasionally block, unwanted or potentially malicious applications.

But what exactly is Smart App Control? How does it work, who benefits most, and are there any caveats? In this story we’ll share some history and explain why SAC has been something of a stealth feature in Windows 11.

What is Smart App Control?

Smart App Control is a security feature in Windows 11 designed to block untrusted or potentially dangerous applications from running on a PC. Built directly into the operating system (through Windows Security), SAC leverages code signing, Microsoft’s intelligence cloud, and artificial intelligence to make real-time decisions about whether an app or application should be allowed to run. Its goal is to minimize the risk that malware, ransomware, and unwanted software could run on users’ systems — with minimal user intervention.

At its heart, Smart App Control is a kind of gatekeeper. When you attempt to run an app, SAC evaluates its trustworthiness. That evaluation is based on numerous criteria: Is the app digitally signed? Is it widely used and recognized as safe by Microsoft’s threat intelligence network? Has it been flagged previously for questionable behavior?

If an app fails one or more such checks and is found suspicious or untrustworthy, SAC blocks its execution, silently preventing a potential security event before it starts.

How does Smart App Control work?

SAC operates using a combination of cloud-based intelligence, local analysis, and digital signatures. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how it functions:

• App verification: When a user attempts to launch an application, SAC inspects the file. It first checks if the app is digitally signed by a trusted publisher, an important indicator of legitimacy.
• Cloud intelligence search: SAC then consults Microsoft’s extensive security databases in the cloud. These aggregate threat data from millions of Windows devices worldwide. If the app has been flagged already or is recognized as part of any malware campaign, it is blocked.
• AI-based analysis: For less clear-cut instances, SAC uses AI to evaluate an app’s behavior. That is, it looks for telltale signs of malware or unwanted code. Such a dynamic analysis helps catch emerging threats not yet known to the cloud.

When an app is blocked, the user gets a clear, informative notification. Usually, there’s no way to override SAC’s decision, which puts security ahead of convenience. It also ensures that users will quickly report false positives.

Smart App Control is designed to be simple and automatic. Unlike conventional antivirus or endpoint security, it requires no updates to definitions, nor manual scans. SAC works behind the scenes to block threats in real time. Because it uses both local and cloud-based intelligence, it’s always current.

On the downside, some legitimate apps, especially older or custom business software, may not be digitally signed, resulting in false positives. If SAC decides an app is unsafe, the only way to run the app is to turn SAC off.

Working with Smart App Control

Notably, Smart App Control is enabled by default — but only on “clean installs” of Windows 11 version 22H2 or later. Systems upgraded from older versions of Windows 11 will always show SAC in the “Off” state.

Microsoft made this decision to avoid potential compatibility issues with legacy or line-of-business applications. That means users can’t benefit from SAC unless they have a newer PC or somebody reinstalls Windows 11 from scratch on an older one. (See my Windows clean install tutorial for complete instructions.)

SAC prerequisites

To get granular: SAC requires that the following be present as Windows 11 comes up for the first time:

• Secure Boot, a security feature that allows only trusted, digitally signed software to run as Windows boots up
• A working chain of trust, including current CA-2023 boot certificates in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and a CA-2023 compliant bootloader

Newer PCs — namely, those built in 2018 or later, with Windows 10 or 11 installed prior to delivery — routinely include UEFI-only boot and support Secure Boot from the get-go. Indeed, Secure Boot was introduced with Windows 8, and the original certificates came along in 2011 (Production PCA 2011, UEFI CA 2011, and KEK CA 2011). They’ve been shipped in firmware ever since.

As long as such machines get updated through Windows Update (or some managed equivalent, such as Microsoft Intune, Windows Autopilot, or Microsoft Configuration Manager), the new certificates and a proper chain of trust should be established on those PCs. (See FAQ: What you need to know about expiring Windows Secure Boot certificates for more information.) All this said, only Windows 11 imposes a working Secure Boot environment as a hard and fast system requirement as of 2021.

In short, Secure Boot and the chain of trust provide the essential foundation for SAC to start with a clean bill of health, security wise, and keep things that way. To learn more about Secure Boot and its various certificates and trappings, consult the Secure Boot and Windows Secure Boot Key Creation and Management Guidance pages on Microsoft Learn.

Modes of operation

SAC has three distinct modes:

• On: SAC actively monitors and blocks untrusted apps.
• Evaluation: SAC quietly observes your usage patterns and system needs before fully activating.
• Off: SAC is disabled and will not intervene.

SAC will normally start in Evaluation mode for up to a month, then turn itself On or Off depending on observed system behavior. Once turned on, SAC cannot be set back into Evaluation mode. Organizations or users who run custom software or specialized workflows should leave SAC in Evaluation mode to ensure that business functions keep working.

To check SAC’s status:

1. Open the Windows Security app.
2. Navigate to App & browser control.
3. Look for the “Smart App Control” section. You’ll see the current status: On, Off, or Evaluation mode, as shown in Figure 1.

Until recently, SAC could not be toggled off and on again — once it was turned off, you had to reinstall or reset Windows 11 to re-enable it. But with the April 2026 Patch Tuesday release of Windows 11 (KB5083769), admins and elevated users can turn SAC on or off as they see fit, as long as the initial setup conditions described above are met.

This toggling capability is a step forward for usability and safety, because it lets users with administrative privileges temporarily disable SAC in order to install, update, or uninstall certain unsigned apps, such as those that rely on Windows Installer Transform (MST) files, and then turn SAC back on immediately.

Note that this feature is being gradually rolled out, so you may not have access to it yet.

Smart App Control compared to other Windows 11 protections

Microsoft has long offered security features like Windows Defender, Controlled Folder Access, and Application Control. SAC differs in its general, automated approach. Rather than relying on static definitions, group policies, or user input, SAC leverages real-time intelligence and AI.

In many ways, SAC takes the best bits of Application Control (previously available through Device Guard and Windows Defender Application Control) and makes them accessible to a wider audience. It also involves little or no manual setup and few, if any, policy issues. Then again, as covered earlier in the story, SAC also functions as a black box: one either lives with its judgments, or does without it.

Real-world impact and industry reception

Feedback from the IT community has been mostly positive. Security researchers note SAC’s ability to block emerging threats before traditional antivirus solutions can respond. But SAC is hardly bullet-proof: a number of studies cite focused exploits or workarounds to bypass or trick SAC. For instance, Elastic Security Labs documented multiple techniques to break SAC in 2021, with follow-ons from Hacker News and TechRadar.

As always, a proactive approach to cybersecurity that includes teaching users to avoid trouble remains a key ingredient in establishing and maintaining a strong security posture.

For end users, SAC’s presence may go largely unnoticed — until, that is, it intercepts a malicious download or prevents installation of a suspicious or malicious program. Or, as the case may sometimes be, when users try to run old, unsigned software that SAC won’t allow.

Tips for IT administrators

For IT professionals considering deploying devices with SAC, certain best practices are worth implementing:

• Test SAC in Evaluation mode before rolling out widely, especially if your organization relies on custom or legacy software, or if anything important is unsigned.
• Educate users about SAC’s presence and purpose so they understand why certain apps may be blocked. Set up a procedure to request support and/or fixes, particularly if important software gets blocked. Possible workarounds include restricted VMs with SAC turned off to run unsigned applications.
• Maintain an up-to-date inventory of critical applications and ensure as many as possible are digitally signed by trusted publishers.
• Monitor Microsoft resources Learn, Support, and Answers forums for SAC updates, compatibility lists, and troubleshooting tips.

The future of Smart App Control

As threats continue to evolve, Microsoft should continue to expand SAC’s capabilities. Undoubtedly it will use more advanced AI models and deeper integration with Windows Defender and Microsoft 365 security. Future updates may introduce more granular controls for enterprise environments, including managed exceptions and better reporting tools.

For now, SAC represents a useful additional tool for Windows security. It’s intended to shift the balance in favor of the good guys in the ongoing war against malware. So far, it’s been a modest step forward. But it’s not unthinkable that SAC could offer more and better protection in upcoming Windows releases.

[Also see: FAQ: What you need to know about expiring Windows Secure Boot certificates]

This article was originally published in September 2025 and updated in June 2026.

Researchers in Switzerland claim to have built a perfect random number generator from two quantum superconducting chips, a 30-meter-long pipe, and some software. The resulting device could be used to generate cryptographic keys, or to offer a “public randomness service” for lotteries or blockchain applications, they say.

They’re not the first to make the claim.

Many sources of randomness are biased. For example, coins or dice tend to favor one side. “Even modern random number generators, which are based on quantum mechanical effects like the reflection of photons from beam splitters, are not entirely immune to such a systematic error or ‘bias’,” said Andreas Wallraff, one of the leaders of the research team at ETH Zurich.

Similar biases can be found in purely software-based pseudo-random number generators. This has led to security problems in IoT devices and WhatsApp, among other applications.

To get around that, the researchers set up of two supercomputing chips, each representing one qubit, cooled to near absolute zero. The chips are connected by a 30-meter-long microwave guide, similarly cooled, and the microwave photons flying between them create a situation of quantum entanglement.

The results produced by this process are then transformed via a special algorithm to generate perfect randomness. “The resulting sequence of zeros and ones is now really perfectly random, and we can even certify that,” said Renato Renner, the other team leader. “The technical improvements allowed us to create random numbers that will remain perfectly random for all eternity.”

The team published their results this week in an article entitled “Experimental randomness amplification” in Nature.

This article first appeared on CSO.

CryptoLocker. WannaCry. DarkSide. Conti. MedusaLocker. Qilin. The ransomware threat has exploded over the past decade, and it isn’t going away anytime soon; the news brings constant reports of new waves of this pernicious type of malware washing across the world.

Ransomware gained in popularity in large part because of the immediate financial payoff for attackers: It works by encrypting the files on your hard disk, then demanding that you pay a ransom, frequently in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, to decrypt them. Now many ransomware gangs are switching tactics, stealthily infiltrating enterprise systems, collecting sensitive corporate data over time, and later threatening to expose that data if the organization doesn’t pay up.

Nevertheless, individuals and businesses are still at risk from traditional ransomware attacks. In this article, I’ll show you how to keep yourself safe in Windows 11 — and Windows 10 too, for those who haven’t yet moved to Windows 11 — including how to use an anti-ransomware tool built into both versions of Windows.

(Administrators, see “What IT needs to know about ransomware and Windows” at the end of this article.)

This article assumes that you’re already taking the basic precautions against malware in general, including running anti-malware software and never downloading attachments or clicking links in email from unknown senders and suspicious-looking email. Also note that this article has been updated for Windows 11 25H2 and Windows 10 22H2. If you have an earlier Windows release, some things may be different.

Use controlled folder access

Microsoft is concerned enough about ransomware that it built an easy-to-configure anti-ransomware tool directly into Windows 10 and 11. Called controlled folder access, it protects you by letting only safe and fully vetted applications access your files. Unknown applications or known malware threats aren’t allowed through.

By default, the feature is not turned on, so if you want to protect yourself against ransomware, you’ll have to tell it to get to work. And you can customize exactly how it works by adding new applications to its whitelist of programs that can access files, and adding new folders in addition to the ones that it protects by default.

To switch it on, you’ll need to access Windows Security. To get to it in Windows 11, click Start > Settings to open the Settings app, then select Privacy & Security > Windows Security.  

In Windows 10, click Start > Settings to open the Settings app, then select Update & Security > Windows Security.

In Windows Security, select Virus & threat protection. On the screen that appears, scroll down to the “Ransomware protection” section and click Manage ransomware protection. On the next screen, under “Controlled folder access,” toggle the switch to On. You’ll get a prompt asking if you want to make the change. Click Yes.

You shouldn’t leave it at that and feel safe yet, because there’s a chance that you have folders you’d like to protect that the feature ignores. By default, it protects Windows system folders (and folders underneath them) like C:\Users\UserName\Documents, where UserName is your Windows user name. In addition to Documents, Windows system folders include Desktop, Music, Pictures, and Videos.

But all your other folders are fair game for any ransomware that makes its way onto your PC.

To add folders you want protected, click the Protected folders link that appears after you switch on controlled folder access. A prompt appears asking if you want to make the change. Click Yes. Click the Add a protected folder button that is on top of the list of protected folders that appears, then navigate from the screen that appears to the folder you want to protect and click Select Folder.

Continue to add folders in this way. Remember that when you add a folder, all folders underneath it are protected as well.

If you decide at any point to remove a folder, get back to the “Protected folders” screen, click the folder you want to remove, and then click Remove. Note that you won’t be able to remove any of the Windows system folders that are protected when you turn the feature on. You can only remove the ones that you’ve added.

Microsoft determines which applications should be allowed access to protected folders, and unsurprisingly, among them are its own Microsoft Office apps. Microsoft hasn’t published a list of which apps are allowed, though, so consider taking action to let apps you trust access your files.

To do it, go back to the screen where you turned on controlled folder access and click Allow an app through Controlled folder access. A prompt appears asking if you want to make the change. Click Yes. From the screen that appears, click Add an allowed app, navigate to the executable file of the program you want to add, click Open, and then confirm you want to add the file. As with adding folders to the list of protected folders, you can remove the app by getting back to this screen, clicking the application you want to remove, then clicking Remove.

Hint: If you’re not sure where executable files are located for programs you want to add to the allow list, look for the folder name with the program’s name in the “WindowsProgram Files” or “WindowsProgram Files (x86)” folders, then look for an executable file in that folder.

Note: In Windows 11, OneDrive folders are automatically protected by controlled folder access when you turn it on. However, they may not necessarily be protected in Windows 10. In Windows 10, on the “Ransomware protection” page, you’ll be notified in the Ransomware data recovery section whether your OneDrive files are protected. If they’re not protected, click the Set up OneDrive button there.

Back up… but do it properly

The whole point of ransomware is to hold your files hostage until you pay to unlock them. So one of the best protections from ransomware is to back up your files. That way, there’s no need to pay the ransom, because you can easily restore your files from the backup.

It’s a good idea to not just back up to a local drive but additionally use a reputable cloud-based storage and backup service. If you back up to a drive attached to your PC, when your PC gets infected with ransomware, the backup drive will likely be encrypted along with any other disks inside or attached to your PC. Cloud backups are generally less vulnerable but not wholly immune to ransomware attacks.

Make sure that your backup service uses versioning — that is, it keeps not just the current version of each of your files, but previous ones as well. That way, if the most current version of your files gets infected, you can restore from previous versions. Most popular backup and storage services, including Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Carbonite, Dropbox, and many others, use versioning. It’s a good idea to get familiar with the versioning feature of whichever service you use now, so you can easily restore files in a pinch.

Some services, including OneDrive and Google Drive, now offer ransomware detection. Users are notified of suspicious activity and can use the vendors’ tools to remove infected files and restore older versions.

Stay patched

Microsoft regularly releases Windows 10 and Windows 11 security patches, and they’re automatically applied via Windows Update. But if you hear about a ransomware outbreak, you shouldn’t wait for Windows Update to work — you should immediately get the update yourself so that you’re protected as soon as possible. And it’s not just Windows updates you want to get. You also want to make sure Windows Security, Microsoft’s built-in anti-malware tool, has the latest anti-malware definitions.

To do both in Windows 10, go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and click the Check for updates button. In Windows 11, go to Settings > Windows Update and click the Check for updates button. (If updates are already waiting for you, you’ll see them listed instead of the Check for updates button.) If Windows finds updates, it installs them. If it requires a reboot, it will tell you.

You need to worry not just about Windows staying patched, but other software as well. If you use an anti-malware program other than Windows Security, make sure it and its malware definitions are up to date.

And the other software on your PC should be kept up to date as well. So check how each piece of software gets updated and make sure to update each one regularly. For help keeping all your apps up to date, consider setting up an automated tool like Patch My PC Updater or Software Update Monitor (see our tutorial “How to keep your apps up to date in Windows 10 and 11”) — or, if you’re comfortable using the command line, try the WinGet command (see “WinGet: The best way to keep Windows apps updated”).

Disable macros in Microsoft Office

Ransomware can be spread via macros in Office files, so to be safe you should turn them off. Microsoft now disables macros from the internet by default, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re turned off in your version of Office, depending on when you installed it and whether you’ve updated it.

To turn them off, when you’re in an Office application, select File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings and select either Disable all macros with notification or Disable all macros without notification. If you disable them with notification, when you open the file you’ll get a message warning that the macros were disabled and letting you turn them on. Only turn them on if you’re absolutely sure they’re from a safe, trusted source.

Get ransomware protection and/or mitigation tools

Just about any anti-malware program includes built-in anti-ransomware protections, but there are several programs that promise to specifically target ransomware. Most are paid, but there are also some free options.

Bitdefender offers free decryption tools that can unlock your data if you’ve been attacked by ransomware and it’s being held ransom. They can only decrypt data that’s been encrypted with certain specific pieces or families of ransomware, including REvil/Sodinokibi, DarkSide, MaMoCrypt, WannaRen, and several others. Avast offers its own set of free decryption tools.

What IT needs to know about ransomware and Windows

Many Microsoft 365 and Windows commercial plans, especially at the enterprise level, include ransomware detection and protection tools. Advanced products such as Microsoft Defender XDR are also available under separate licenses.

Even without those tools, there’s plenty that admins can do to protect Windows systems from ransomware. The most obvious: Apply the latest security patches to not just all PCs in an organization, but all servers and any other enterprise-level hardware. Also lock down application permissions, train users to spot phishing attempts, and, of course, securely back up all corporate data.

IT also needs to make sure the notoriously insecure SMB1 Windows networking protocol is disabled in all devices. Multiple ransomware attacks have spread through the 30-year-old protocol; even Microsoft says it should be used by no one, ever.

The good news is that Windows 10 version 1709, released in October 2017, finally did away with SMB1. (It’s not in Windows 11, either.) But that’s only for PCs with clean installs of version 1709 or later. Older PCs that were updated from earlier versions of Windows still have the protocol built in.

The Microsoft support article “Detect, enable and disable SMBv1, SMBv2, and SMBv3 in Windows” offers details about how to turn off the protocol. It recommends killing SMB1 but keeping SMB2 and SMB3 active, and only deactivating them for temporary troubleshooting.

Administrators can use the controlled folder access feature (covered earlier in this article) to stop ransomware from encrypting files and folders of PCs running Windows 11 or Windows 10 version 1709 or later. They can use the Group Policy Management Console, the Windows Security Center, or PowerShell to turn on controlled folder access for users on a network, customize which folders should be protected, and let additional applications access the folders beyond the Microsoft defaults, as detailed  in the Microsoft articles “Enable controlled folder access” and “Customize controlled folder access.”

One potential issue with controlled folder access is that it might block apps that users typically use from accessing folders. So Microsoft recommends using audit mode first, to see what will happen when controlled folder access is turned on. For information about how to do it, go to Microsoft’s “Evaluate exploit protection” documentation.

As noted above, Office macros can spread ransomware. Microsoft is now blocking macros downloaded from the internet by default, but to be safe, IT should use Group Policy to block them. For advice on how to do it, go to the “Block macros from running in Office files from the Internet” section on Microsoft’s “Macros from the internet will be blocked by default in Office” documentation.

This article was originally published in January 2018 and most recently updated in May 2026.

Over the next three to five years, both governments and the private sector will need to rapidly adapt identification and mitigation protocols as adversaries move from AI-assisted to AI-enabled sanctions evasion and proliferation financing (PF), a new research paper warns.

The report, Algorithms of Evasion: The Rise of AI-Enabled Proliferation Financing, from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK-based defense and security think tank, defines PF as the use of funds or financial services to acquire, develop or otherwise deal in weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It states, “North Korea and Iran are now developing and deploying AI models to aid with sanctions evasion activities.”

Key findings include the fact that AI is now capable of mass producing high-quality fraudulent documents, as well as automating what the report describes as “the administrative minutia of managing extensive shell company  networks.” AI powered systems, it states, can also “analyze blockchain patterns in real time to dynamically adjust cryptocurrency mixing strategies, effectively evading detection tools.”

In addition, it says, “[tools such as generative AI] which can produce sophisticated fraudulent identification documents, for example, have helped North Korea perpetrate phishing attacks against Western companies.”

Dr. Aaron Arnold, senior associate fellow with the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, who authored the paper, said in an email that what prompted it was an uptick over the last year in North Korea’s use of AI to facilitate and enhance its cyber operations, in the form of phishing schemes designed to generate revenue for the country’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

He advised enterprise IT managers who need to protect their organizations from becoming victims of sanction evasion activities that “[it] means largely adapting to a landscape where traditional human-focused security boundaries are being bypassed by automated technologies.”

For IT managers, said Arnold, “this might entail incorporating defensive AI, the use of behavior-based analytics, using ‘circuit breakers’ when there is heavy use of API or MCPs, updating personnel training, and hardening identity verification, especially for any remote hiring.” 

Distinction between AI-assisted and AI-enabled activity is ‘central’

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said that the RUSI report matters “because it names the right structural shift. AI is not creating sanctions evasion from thin air, it is compressing and scaling methods that already work.”

He pointed out that none of the sanction-evading techniques such as fraudulent documents, synthetic identities, shell companies, hidden beneficial ownership, crypto laundering, and others are new. “What changes is the speed, quality, volume and coordination with which these methods can now be assembled,” he said.

According to Gogia, “the distinction between AI-assisted and AI-enabled activity is central. AI-assisted evasion uses AI for discrete tasks: writing a better email, producing a cleaner document, generating a stronger false profile, translating a pitch, summarizing regulations or preparing a plausible job application. AI-enabled evasion is more serious.”

A ‘structural asymmetry’

This tactic, he said, “begins to coordinate the system itself. It links identity, documents, ownership structures, payment routes, cloud access, crypto wallets, API calls and timing. The difference is not whether AI helps someone fake a document. The difference is whether AI begins to orchestrate the deception.”

That is why the report’s findings should worry enterprise leaders, he noted: “Many organizations still assume the bad actor is mostly human, mostly linear and mostly slow. That assumption is expiring. AI lets adversaries run more attempts, with fewer errors, across more channels, in more languages, with better paperwork and greater patience than most enterprise review processes can absorb. This is not a tale of genius criminals discovering magic. It is the story of ordinary controls meeting industrialized plausibility.”

The evidence today, he pointed out, is strongest around tactics such as identity fraud, document fraud, synthetic personas, remote-worker deception, phishing, social engineering, crypto obfuscation and workflow abuse. “Fully autonomous evasion networks sit on the horizon,” he said. “They are serious, but they are not yet the everyday baseline.”

This distinction matters, said Gogia: “If enterprises obsess over cinematic autonomous agent scenarios while leaving remote hiring, vendor onboarding, payment approvals, and document review full of holes, they will lose in the most prosaic way imaginable.”

The report, he said, also gets the “asymmetry” right. “Offensive actors can learn across the ecosystem,” he said. “They can scrape open information, reuse leaked records, study enforcement patterns, test onboarding forms, inspect public procurement data, watch court filings, probe compliance thresholds and [use the information to] refine their behavior.”

Defenders, by contrast, are hemmed in by privacy rules, fragmented data, explainability requirements, jurisdictional boundaries, conservative operating models and siloed technology estates. “Offensive AI learns broadly,” he said. “Defensive AI often learns from fragments. That is the structural asymmetry.”

He explained that the regulatory landscape also amplifies the problem, in that regulatory bodies “still speak in separate dialects. [For example] the EU AI Act pushes organizations toward stronger obligations for high-risk AI. NIST-style frameworks push risk management, transparency, and governance.”

A trust architecture problem

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) expectations push national risk assessment and counter-proliferation controls, he noted, while banking regulators focus on model risk, accountability and operational resilience. “None of these streams is irrelevant. The trouble is that criminals do not organize themselves around regulatory workstreams. They organize around outcomes.”

What that means, said Gogia, “is that enterprise cannot wait for a clean global rulebook. It will not arrive in time. CIOs, CISOs, compliance officers and boards need a working governance model now. They need privacy-preserving analytics, controlled data environments, audit trails, legal safeguards and clear model-risk accountability.”

He said that enterprise IT managers should treat the situation as a trust architecture problem rather than a narrow sanctions-screening problem. “The uncomfortable truth is that AI is not simply helping bad actors write better phishing emails or forge tidier documents,” he noted. “It is helping them manufacture legitimacy across a chain of enterprise workflows.”

Likely outcome an ‘AI arms race’

Report author Arnold also noted that there are signs that cyber criminals have discovered new AI technologies and abilities that legitimate enterprises could adopt for legitimate applications.

History, he said, “is replete with [criminals] developing novel solutions to tough problems, [which are] later adopted by law enforcement. Much of our anti-financial crime policy is effectively a response to bad actors exploiting systems or using technology in novel ways to perpetrate crimes. In this scenario, I think an ‘AI arms race’ between enforcement authorities and bad actors is the most likely outcome.”

Gogia added, “the baddies are not teaching enterprises how to invent AI. They are teaching enterprises where trust is leaking. That is the lesson worth taking seriously.”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.