Interpol has warned that artificial intelligence is accelerating the speed and scale of existing cybercrime techniques, with new agentic systems creating additional risks as they gain the ability to act on users’ behalf.

Bjorn R. Watne, global chief information security officer at Interpol, told CNBC at Tech Week Singapore on Thursday that AI was improving established tactics such as scams and fraud rather than creating entirely new forms of cybercrime. Criminals can use the technology to target multiple victims simultaneously, while better translation tools and digital identities can make fraudulent interactions harder to distinguish from genuine ones.

“It’s an evolution and not a revolution,” Watne said, describing AI as primarily increasing the “speed and scale” of existing criminal techniques.

Watne advised businesses to identify their most critical assets, or “crown jewels”, before deciding how to allocate cybersecurity resources. He said organisations should assess which adversaries would be interested in those assets and use threat intelligence to understand their tactics and technologies.

“There is no need for everyone to try and protect against everything all at once when they’re not being targeted by it,” Watne said. The appropriate defences can differ between organisations facing opportunistic criminals and those exposed to advanced persistent threat actors.

Watne said a disconnect between senior management and cybersecurity strategy remained an issue at some companies. He said some industries had yet to recognise the extent to which their operations now depend on technology, despite cyber risk moving higher on corporate risk registers.

The Interpol security chief said agentic AI presented a distinct concern because systems capable of taking actions can create consequences beyond providing incorrect information. He highlighted the use of AI in cars and self-driving vehicles, where an erroneous action could have physical consequences.

Watne said public trust in technology could compound those risks because people often adopt new devices and applications without applying the same safeguards they use for financial services. He said users were accustomed to protections such as PIN codes and awareness of card skimming in financial services, while they could be more willing to accept prompts and grant access to new technologies.

As AI systems become increasingly capable of acting on behalf of users, Watne said that high level of trust warranted greater scrutiny.

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