On August 27th, OpenAI, Microsoft, and over 100 other tech and cybersecurity firms, such as Google, AWS, Anthropic, IBM, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Cloudflare, issued a joint statement warning that critical infrastructure, including hospitals, is soon at risk of a rapid increase in AI-driven cyberattacks.

The companies suggest these principles for a coordinated response:

• Recognize that status quo security won’t be enough. 
• Empower more defenders with cyber-capable AI. 
• Mobilize a collective response. 

“All organizations, cybersecurity companies, technology partners, governments, and AI frontier companies have an important role: accelerate defenders’ priorities with tools, funding, and hands-on support, especially for critical infrastructure organizations with limited budgets,” the letter stated.

“The key message was blunt: We have a limited window to strengthen cyber defenses before AI-enabled attacks become more widespread and sophisticated,” Baxter Lee, president of healthcare security and compliance organization Clearwater, noted on LinkedIn. “Healthcare leaders should be asking now: Can we identify, prioritize, investigate and remediate risk at the speed this new environment demands?”

“The letter follows a spate of cyberattacks from AI models, with the models in some cases going rogue,” Kate Conger remarked for The New York Times, adding that “Anthropic also recently revealed that one of its AI models broke into the systems of three outside organizations during a test. Meta has said its A.I. models have done something similar.”