Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 40 minutes ago
If Cybercrime were a nation it would ALREADY be the world's 3rd largest economy. AI is massively boosting cybercrime – already $8 trillion a year. AI-driven cyberattacks are one of the greatest risks for every industry and a threat to every corporation.
Our world is already being hit by over 500 million different ransomware attacks a year, 20% of cybercrime. 50% directed at US-based organisations. Although 90% of organisations refuse to pay, that means 50 million do so each year. Cybersecurity is a Number One issue.
Average ransom is $500,000, with no guarantee that data will be restored. Dealing with all damage and restoring things to normal, costs each company more than $2.2m on average, the equivalent of 35,000 hours of time. And that is without the cost to reputation, consumer trust and so on.
66% of companies report significant loss of revenue following an attack, with 29% laying off staff as a result. One in three UK companies hit by a ransomware attack close down altogether.
AI itself is already being attacked – by rogue AI. Researchers have already “poisoned” AI by feeding “healthy” AI with hidden code in generative Chat requests, which turned that AI into a “Sleeper Agent”. It can then be hijacked at any time using special triggers in other Chat requests, to do really bad things such as write deliberate vulnerabilities into computer code. Such “poisoning” of AI is permanent, and almost impossible to detect or reverse.
It is vital to understand that this is an “asymmetric battle”. As we will see below, it costs almost nothing for someone to harness AI to attack a medium to large company, but a small fortune for the company to protect itself, or repair the damage, even if they never pay out. Meanwhile, the person launching the AI attack has nothing to fear: no one will come knocking at their door. They will never be discovered – probably. So long as they are very discrete about how they spend their new wealth, and don’t talk about what they have done.
That is why we can be absolutely sure that we are only at the very beginning of the greatest crime pandemic that humanity has ever known. One with unimaginable powers to corrupt and destroy wealth and disrupt society.
You can buy entire digital identities of people for $1000 or less, and in many cases old passwords and other data are also available for free. Over 16,000 different agencies are selling phishing kits on the Dark Web. Malware can be bought for $45 and tutorials on making attacks cost $5. An AI-driven attack can be set up and launched in minutes, against a government or a company, paid for by BitCoin. Expect therefore huge jump in Cybersecurity spending AND disruption.
Keynote for Prime Minister's Office - UAE in Dubai. For more see my book "How AI Will Change Your Life". lnkd.in/dy9wbses
If Cybercrime were a nation it would ALREADY be the world's 3rd largest economy. AI is massively boosting cybercrime – already $8 trillion a year. AI-driven cyberattacks are one of the greatest risks for every industry and a threat to every corporation.
Our world is already being hit by over 500 million different ransomware attacks a year, 20% of cybercrime. 50% directed at US-based organisations. Although 90% of organisations refuse to pay, that means 50 million do so each year. Cybersecurity is a Number One issue.
Average ransom is $500,000, with no guarantee that data will be restored. Dealing with all damage and restoring things to normal, costs each company more than $2.2m on average, the equivalent of 35,000 hours of time. And that is without the cost to reputation, consumer trust and so on.
66% of companies report significant loss of revenue following an attack, with 29% laying off staff as a result. One in three UK companies hit by a ransomware attack close down altogether.
AI itself is already being attacked – by rogue AI. Researchers have already “poisoned” AI by feeding “healthy” AI with hidden code in generative Chat requests, which turned that AI into a “Sleeper Agent”. It can then be hijacked at any time using special triggers in other Chat requests, to do really bad things such as write deliberate vulnerabilities into computer code. Such “poisoning” of AI is permanent, and almost impossible to detect or reverse.
It is vital to understand that this is an “asymmetric battle”. As we will see below, it costs almost nothing for someone to harness AI to attack a medium to large company, but a small fortune for the company to protect itself, or repair the damage, even if they never pay out. Meanwhile, the person launching the AI attack has nothing to fear: no one will come knocking at their door. They will never be discovered – probably. So long as they are very discrete about how they spend their new wealth, and don’t talk about what they have done.
That is why we can be absolutely sure that we are only at the very beginning of the greatest crime pandemic that humanity has ever known. One with unimaginable powers to corrupt and destroy wealth and disrupt society.
You can buy entire digital identities of people for $1000 or less, and in many cases old passwords and other data are also available for free. Over 16,000 different agencies are selling phishing kits on the Dark Web. Malware can be bought for $45 and tutorials on making attacks cost $5. An AI-driven attack can be set up and launched in minutes, against a government or a company, paid for by BitCoin. Expect therefore huge jump in Cybersecurity spending AND disruption.
Keynote for Prime Minister's Office - UAE in Dubai. For more see my book "How AI Will Change Your Life". lnkd.in/dy9wbses
