AI Hacking Wave Hits India's Financial Sector

India's cybersecurity agency, CERT-In, has identified a hacking group named 'Crafty Falcon' responsible for a series of AI-driven cyberattacks targeting the nation's financial sector. The group utilizes advanced, publicly available AI tools to automate break-ins, enabling them to operate at unprecedented speeds. At least two of these identified tools, ARTEX and PentAGI, have been linked to China.

These attacks have specifically targeted non-bank lenders, fintech companies, and cryptocurrency exchanges. 'Crafty Falcon' employs machine intelligence to survey potential victims and executes fund transfers by exploiting the targets' own payment systems. The advisory highlighted that attacks are often timed to coincide with periods of low monitoring, such as holidays and weekends, to delay detection.

Recent incidents include a police complaint detailing approximately $2 million lost by two Mumbai-based non-bank lenders due to unauthorized transfers. These attacks compromised application programming interfaces (APIs), which are crucial for inter-firm financial communications. Other reported incidents involve data leaks and unauthorized debits from customer accounts, signaling a broad and evolving threat landscape.