AI is already making online crimes easier. It could get much worse.

Anton Cherepanov is always on the lookout for something interesting. And in late August last year, he spotted just that. It was a file uploaded to VirusTotal, a site cybersecurity researchers like him use to analyze submissions for potential viruses and other types of malicious software, often known as malware. On the surface it seemed innocuous, but it triggered Cherepanov’s custom malware-detecting measures. Over the next few hours, he and his colleague Peter Strýček inspected the sample and...