An Extortion Group Has Been Breaking Into Companies Worldwide This Year Using a Tool Built Into Every Web Browser: View Source
AI THREAT DEFENSE GAP RESEARCH SEPTEMBER 2026 · 8 MIN READ Eighteen months ago, the best publicly tested AI systems could barely get started on a realistic simulated cyberattack. By early 2026, the best one tested was averaging nearly half of the attack sequence. The estimated cost of attempting the entire exercise: about $87 . That last number may matter more to a small business than almost anything else in the report. This is not a story about an AI system independently breaking into a company from beginning to end. The government researchers who ran the tests specifically said today's public models still could not reliably do that. It is a story about something more immediate: how quickly the cost, skill and time required to perform parts of an attack are falling. And that creates a problem for businesses whose defenses still move a...