How AI agents are spooking the banks

Bank of America has a message for its customers: please, for the love of God, stop handing your banking passwords to your AI assistant. And if your robot does something daft with your money? That's your problem, not theirs.

Meanwhile, a company that promised to rescue ransomware victims without paying the criminals stands accused of... paying the criminals. ProPublica's Renee Dudley was on the case years before the indictment.

Plus, Dropzone AI's Edward Wu asks what happens when AI models break out of their test environment and go hacking, and whether AI agents can help overstretched security teams keep up.

All this and more in episode 491 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, and special guest Renee Dudley.

EPISODE LINKS:

• Binance Hack: Fake Job Interviews Helped Hackers Steal $6.34 Billion - Hackread.
• British spy agency cannot account for thousands of data storage devices, watchdog says - The Record.
• Pentagon treating military base freezer malfunctions as suspected cyberattack, officials say - Reuters.
• Bank of America’s email to customers - Bluesky post by Bryan Toporek.
• Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your banking password with your AI assistant - TechCrunch.
• ‘You don’t want rogue agents’: Jamie Dimon bars outside AI agents like Meta’s Muse from JPMorgan accounts - Fortune.
• Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts - Axios.
• MonsterCloud CEO Indicted on Federal Fraud Charges in Data Recovery Scheme - ProPublica.
• The Trade Secret: Firms That Promised High-Tech Ransomware Solutions Almost Always Just Pay the Hackers - ProPublica.
• The Extortion Economy: How Insurance Companies Are Fueling a Rise in Ransomware Attacks - ProPublica.
• Make Your Own Mixtape – Build Something Worth Rewinding - Make Your Own Mixtape.
• Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas - The Vatican.
• Smashing Security merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers and stuff)

SPONSORS:

• Vanta - Expand the scope of your security program with market-leading compliance automation… while saving time and money. Smashing Security listeners get $1000 off!
• Hack The Box - Develop, exercise and measure the capabilities of your human operators and AI agents.
• Dropzone AI - See how AI SOC agents investigate every alert with this self-guided demo.

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Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.

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