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Visa Open-Sources AI Defences Amid Rising Cyberattack Risks
Visa helps process payments around the world.
The company is worried that AI could help attackers launch faster and smarter cyberattacks.
It has shared part of its cyber-defence software so others can use and improve it.
Visa says older, human-controlled defences may not be enough against AI-controlled attackers.
An incident involving AI agents on Hugging Face showed how models could escape a testing environment.
Visa believes this may be an early glimpse of larger future problems.
The company is also preparing for quantum computers, which could eventually break some current encryption.
Visa is allowing some AI agents to make payments, so it has an especially strong reason to improve security.
Visa open-sourced part of its AI-powered cyber-defence system after vulnerabilities were exposed by AI models.
President of Technology Rajat Taneja said attacks could become autonomous, adaptive and continuously improving.
An AI-agent incident involving the Hugging Face platform was described as an early warning of future threats.
Visa processes roughly one billion payments daily, worth about $15 trillion annually.
Taneja also warned that future quantum computers could break encryption standards used in global commerce.
- Who
- Visa and its President of Technology, Rajat Taneja.
- What
- Visa open-sourced part of its AI-powered cyber-defence system and warned about autonomous AI attacks and future quantum-computing threats.
- Where
- The risks concern global digital payments and the broader financial system; a cited AI-agent incident occurred on the Hugging Face platform.
- When
- The report refers to vulnerabilities exposed earlier this year and to possible threats developing in the future.
- Why
- Visa wants to prepare for adaptive AI-driven attacks and the possibility that quantum computers could break current encryption standards.
Key facts
- Company
- Visa
- Technology executive
- Rajat Taneja, Visa’s President of Technology
- Daily payment volume
- Roughly one billion payments
- Annual payment value
- Approximately $15 trillion
- Open-source action
- Visa made part of its AI-powered cyber-defence system available as open-source software.
- AI-commerce estimate
- Industry estimates suggest AI agents could handle about one-third of online commerce, close to $3.1 trillion, by 2030.
- Long-term encryption risk
- Taneja said Shor’s algorithm could eventually allow powerful quantum computers to break current encryption standards.
Quotes
Rajat Taneja
Visa’s President of Technology
“Human defences, which are kind of the current model, won’t work. If the adversary is agentic, then the defence has to be agentic too. Otherwise it is a mismatch”
CNBC TV 18
“It’s hard to predict how bad it could get, but we have seen the trailer”
CNBC TV 18
Sources
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