AI's double-edged sword – Cyber Uncut examines bank job cuts, vulnerabilities, and ransomware

From AI-driven workloads and bank job cuts to attackers exploiting vulnerabilities at machine speed, David Hollingworth and Daniel Croft unpack a turbulent week in cyber security – including Australia's latest threat statistics and proposals to protect artists from AI-generated imitations. The Finance Sector Union says AI adoption is increasing workloads and stress, while job security falls amid thousands of bank cuts. Meanwhile, Arctic Wolf reports that AI autonomously resolves 60 per cent of security investigations, although human analysts remain involved in almost all cases – highlighting the importance of oversight as automation expands. PHP vulnerabilities have been added to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue, with AI helping attackers exploit longstanding flaws. The latest Australian Signals Directorate cyber threat report also points to rising data breach notifications, while four Australian organisations were hit by Qilin ransomware in just four days. There were positive developments, too. Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Deadly Coders are helping 5,000 First Nations students build AI and digital skills, while UNSW academics have proposed a Copyright Plus framework that would give artists greater control and potential remuneration when their work is used to train AI. Enjoy, The Cyber Uncut team