INTERPOL Security Chief: Identify 'Crown Jewels' for AI Defense

Companies are urged to first locate their 'crown jewels' to defend against AI-driven fraud and scams, INTERPOL's global chief information security officer Bjorn R. Watne said.

Watne spoke with CNBC at Tech Week Singapore on Thursday. AI mainly helps criminals run familiar tactics faster and on a larger scale, according to him.

INTERPOL's Strategy for Ranking AI Cyber Risks

AI allows scammers to hit multiple targets at once, Watne said. Better translation and digital identities make fraudulent contacts harder to tell from genuine ones.

Watne advised companies to first pinpoint the assets most critical to their operations. They should also assess who might want to steal or disrupt those assets.

From there, companies can study those adversaries' tactics and technologies through threat intelligence and adjust their defenses accordingly.

"There is no need for everyone to try and protect against everything all at once when they're not being targeted by it," he said.

Watne said that opportunistic criminals and advanced persistent threat (APT) actors may require different defenses. He noted that cyber risk is rising on corporate risk registers, but cybersecurity has not fully reached many boardrooms.

State-backed hackers are already scaling up with AI. TeamT5 found that Chinese state-affiliated groups more than doubled attack volume after adopting open-source AI models.

Watne's Agentic AI Caution Amid Hacker Scaling

Agentic AI, which performs tasks for users, is a particular concern for Watne. He specifically worries about these systems acting on behalf of users.

He warned that incorrect actions, especially in the physical world, could cause bodily harm. He flagged AI in cars and self-driving vehicles as a concern.

This risk also concerns Western governments. In May, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued joint agentic AI guidance, telling organizations to assume these systems may behave unexpectedly until security standards mature.

In August, OpenAI published an open letter warning that AI-enabled attacks will become far more widespread within months. Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Coinbase, and Circle are among the signatories, which numbered more than 100 at launch.