By Golo Mühr
Publication Date: 2026-03-12 12:00:00
Due to rapidly advancing LLM technology, the cost of developing software has already fallen significantly over the past year – a trend that is likely to continue. As expected, this affects all forms of software, including malware. X-Force expects this shift to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the malware threat landscape and force defenders and the threat intelligence community to adapt to these new technologies.
First and foremost, as already discussed in detail, the immediate impact of adversarial use of AI is expected to act as a force multiplier for attackers. This is a numbers game that, unlike the “doom and gloom” hype around AI malware in the early days of AI, is unlikely to bring significant improvements in malware complexity. However, as is clear from traditional malware, attackers often don’t need fancy techniques and implementations to be successful – they use what works. Therefore, underestimating this effect is one of the…
