Microsoft sues service for creating illicit content with its AI platform
Microsoft is accusing three individuals of running a "hacking-as-a-service" scheme that was designed to allow the creation of harmful and illicit content using the company’s platform for AI-generated content.
The foreign-based defendants developed tools specifically designed to bypass safety guardrails Microsoft has erected to prevent the creation of harmful content through its generative AI services, said Steven Masada, the assistant general counsel for Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. They then compromised the legitimate accounts of paying customers. They combined those two things to create a fee-based platform people could use.
Microsoft is also suing seven individuals it says were customers of the service. All 10 defendants were named John Doe because Microsoft doesn’t know their identity.
“By this action, Microsoft seeks to disrupt a sophisticated scheme carried out by cybercriminals who have developed tools specifically designed to bypass the safety guardrails of generative AI services provided by Microsoft and others,” lawyers wrote in a complaint filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia and unsealed Friday.
