INTERPOL cyber security chief says AI amplifies existing cybercrime methods

Bjorn R. Watne, global chief information security officer at INTERPOL, said on October 1 during Singapore Tech Week that artificial intelligence is enhancing existing criminal methods rather than fundamentally changing them, mainly increasing the speed and scale of scams.

He said fraudsters can use AI to target multiple victims simultaneously, while improved translation and digital identity verification make it harder to distinguish fraudulent interactions from genuine ones. Watne described the change as an evolution, not a revolution.

For enterprises, he advised identifying core assets first, determining which actors are most likely to target them, and then using threat intelligence to tailor defenses. He said companies do not need to defend against every type of threat at once, and noted a disconnect between senior management and cybersecurity strategy, with cyber risk still not fully on board agendas in many firms.

Watne also expressed caution about agentic AI that can act on behalf of users. When such systems take wrong actions in the physical world, they could cause physical harm, he said, citing AI use in cars and autonomous vehicles as a concern. He added that people show surprisingly high trust in new technology, which deserves closer scrutiny.