Yandex Cloud Chief: AI Is Speeding Up Cyberattacks at Every Stage

Artificial intelligence has helped attackers move faster through several stages of a cyberattack, from preparation to exploiting a vulnerability and establishing a foothold in a system, according to Grigory Atrepyev, general director of Yandex Cloud.

Citing the company's research, Atrepyev said that in 2026 AI agents accelerated the development of exploits and malicious code by hundreds of times and shortened the gap between the disclosure of a vulnerability and the first attempts to exploit it.

The share of automated attacks is also growing, he said. Some 54.8% of attackers used AI to bypass security defenses. Instead of selecting a single mechanism for a specific environment, a model can launch several common attacks at once, even if some of them fail.

Atrepyev noted that attackers adopt AI faster because their accuracy requirements are low, while defenders must act more cautiously given the high cost of a mistake. Demand among Russian companies for AI agents to protect infrastructure is rising, he added.

Source: RIA Novosti