At a conference with the cybersecurity community, FBI Director Christopher Wray reaffirmed the FBI’s stance on countering artificial intelligence (AI) and cyberspace threats and posed a call to action to strengthen private sector and government partnerships in fighting both domestic and foreign adversaries.  

“I’m sure none of you will be shocked to hear that AI is ripe for potential abuses—and that criminals and hostile foreign governments are already exploiting the technology,” said Wray during his remarks at the Mandiant Worldwide Information Security Exchange, or mWISE, on September 18 in Washington, D.C. “To stay ahead of the threat, at the FBI, we’re determining how we can ethically and legally leverage AI to do our jobs. We’re also identifying and tracking our adversaries’ and criminals’ uses of AI, while protecting American innovation in the AI arena.”  

The goal of mWISE is to bring together the global community of security practitioners to share best practices on strengthening defenses and developing powerful and sophisticated cyber solutions.

Wray emphasized the importance of collaboration, referencing successful cases in fighting cybercrimes thanks to strong partnerships, including the takedown of the malware and botnet known as Qakbot, and the disruption of the Hive ransomware group. He called for further partnership to focus efforts on defending against cybercrimes from China. 

Multiple cyber programs pose international threats, including those based out of Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but the FBI has warned that China is a primary concern. For years, the Chinese government has been stealing American intellectual property and data.  

“China already has a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined,” said Wray. “With AI, China is now in position to try to close the cycle—to use the fruits of their widespread hacking to power, with AI, even more powerful hacking efforts. In fact, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused on China exclusively, Chinese hackers would still outnumber our cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.” 

Wray concluded his remarks with a call to action to strengthening public sector relationships with the FBI so if a crisis arises, all parties will be best situated to respond.  

“My request is not just that you make an incident response plan, but that you make us at the FBI part of that incident response plan,” said Wray. “Give our folks a call today and build a relationship with your local FBI field office now.”