{
  "actor": "NYU Tandon School of Engineering research team",
  "actor_type": "researcher",
  "added": {
    "by": "MLSecOpsHub",
    "date": "2026-08-12"
  },
  "ai_role": "load-bearing",
  "autonomy_level": "fully-autonomous",
  "autonomy_pct": null,
  "category": "lab-escape-eval",
  "confidence": "primary",
  "date_disclosed": "2025-08-26",
  "guardrail_bypass": [
    "open-weight-model"
  ],
  "id": "promptlock-ai-ransomware-poc",
  "impact": "No real-world impact: an academic proof-of-concept demonstrating a closed-loop, LLM-orchestrated ransomware workflow (reconnaissance, exfiltration and encryption). ESET maintains it is the first known case of AI-powered ransomware while agreeing it was a proof-of-concept, not operational malware.",
  "last_updated": "2026-08-12",
  "lifecycle_phases": [
    "recon",
    "exfiltration",
    "impact"
  ],
  "mappings": {
    "aiid": [],
    "cve": [],
    "mitre_atlas": [
      "AML.T0102",
      "AML.T0016.002"
    ],
    "mitre_attack": [],
    "owasp_asi": []
  },
  "mitigations": [],
  "model_families": [
    "openai-gpt"
  ],
  "models": [
    "gpt-oss:20b"
  ],
  "name": "PromptLock — first known AI-powered ransomware (academic proof-of-concept)",
  "related": [],
  "severity": "medium",
  "sources": [
    {
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260813090309/https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/ransomware/first-known-ai-powered-ransomware-uncovered-eset-research/",
      "date": "2025-08-26",
      "publisher": "ESET WeLiveSecurity",
      "title": "First known AI-powered ransomware uncovered by ESET Research",
      "type": "vendor-report",
      "url": "https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/ransomware/first-known-ai-powered-ransomware-uncovered-eset-research/"
    },
    {
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260813050621/https://cyberscoop.com/ai-ransomware-promptlock-nyu-behind-code-discovered-by-security-researchers/",
      "date": "2025-09-05",
      "publisher": "CyberScoop",
      "title": "NYU team behind AI-powered malware dubbed 'PromptLock'",
      "type": "news",
      "url": "https://cyberscoop.com/ai-ransomware-promptlock-nyu-behind-code-discovered-by-security-researchers/"
    }
  ],
  "status": "test-eval",
  "summary": "ESET Research disclosed \"PromptLock\" on 2025-08-26 as the first known AI-powered ransomware after discovering samples uploaded to VirusTotal. The Go-based code used a locally hosted large language model (OpenAI's gpt-oss:20b via the Ollama API) to generate malicious Lua scripts at runtime for file enumeration, exfiltration and encryption. ESET assessed it as a proof-of- concept; researchers at NYU Tandon subsequently confirmed it originated from their academic project \"Ransomware 3.0\" and was never deployed in a real attack.",
  "targets": {
    "countries": [],
    "orgs_affected": null,
    "records_exfiltrated": null,
    "sectors": []
  }
}