去年年底以来，一小群但不断壮大的网络安全专家一直在警告，AI模型正将互联网推向某种灾难。医院、银行、公用事业，基本上所有连接互联网的东西都可能被黑客攻击。
Since late last year, a small but growing chorus of cybersecurity experts has been warning that AI models were pushing the internet toward a sort of cataclysm. Hospitals, banks, utilities, basically anything and everything connected to the web could be hacked.
过去大约一个月，这些场景几乎以壮观的方式成为现实：上个月，AI被用于发现70%网站所用软件中的重大安全漏洞，促使各国政府出于预防措施关闭其网站。一周后，攻击者瞄准全球最大的加密货币交易所币安，部分方法是劫持该公司内部AI工具，最终窃取了数十亿美元。仅今年秋天，AI就被用于攻击拉丁美洲数百家金融机构，更不用说全球各地的数据中心、银行和政府机构。
Over the past month or so, those scenarios have come alive in almost spectacular fashion: Last month, AI was used to find major security flaws in software used by 70 percent of websites, prompting governments to take down their websites as a precaution. A week later, attackers targeted the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, in part by hijacking the company’s internal AI tools, and ultimately drained billions of dollars. This fall alone, AI has been used to hack hundreds of financial institutions in Latin America, not to mention data centers, banks, and government entities around the world.
AI还改变了黑客攻击的经济性，使得针对个人和小型组织的攻击变得足够便宜和容易，以至于值得一做。此外，网络攻击总体上也在上升，虽然这些攻击并非直接与AI相关，但很可能以某种方式利用了该技术。例如，上周，FBI发布警告，称有针对工业制冷系统的黑客攻击，此前法国、比利时、爱尔兰、瑞典、以色列等国的杂货店遭到攻击。
AI has also changed the economics of hacking, such that targeting individual people and small organizations is becoming cheap and easy enough to be worthwhile. And there’s a broader rise in cyberattacks that, though not directly tied to AI, likely leveraged the technology in some way. Last week, for instance, the FBI issued a warning about hacks targeting industrial refrigeration systems following attacks on grocery stores in France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Israel, and other countries.
政府和一直密切关注此事的硅谷企业家们，正在为一场预计将持续较长时间的网络安全脆弱期做准备——他们建议你也这样做。美国国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯最近表示，每个美国军事基地都应当在电网遭受网络攻击中断的情况下，仍能继续运作。日本已宣布进入网络空间紧急状态。韩国国家情报院据报道已命令数千个机构开展紧急网络安全审计。英国正在告诉公民，为包括网络攻击在内的多种潜在灾难做好准备，储备几天的水和食物。每个人都开始有点像末日准备者了，而且并非没有道理。
Governments and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who have been tracking this most closely, are steeling themselves against what promises to be an extended period of cybersecurity vulnerability—and they advise that you do the same. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently said that every U.S. military base should be able to continue operating even in the case of a cyberattack disrupting the power grid. Japan has declared a state of emergency in cyberspace. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has reportedly ordered thousands of organizations to conduct emergency cybersecurity audits. The United Kingdom is telling citizens to have several days of water and food prepared in the event of a number of potential disasters, including a cyberattack. Everybody is starting to sound, just a little bit, like a doomsday prepper, and not without reason.
那么，你如何保护好自己的账户、家人和财务安全？对于普通互联网用户来说，有一些不费力的措施可以采取，避免在这个新现实中成为任人宰割的靶子。最重要、也最容易做的一件事是，把你的数字事务整理好。为所有账户使用不同的密码，最好是长且随机生成的，并将其存储在密码管理器中。在所有可能的地方启用双重身份验证——也就是说，选择在手机上接收确认码，或者最好是在专用应用程序中接收，为敏感账户增加一层安全防护。
So how do you keep your accounts, your family, and your finances all safe? For everyday users of the internet, there are low-lift steps you can take to avoid being a sitting duck in this new reality. The most important and easiest thing is to get your digital affairs in order. Use different passwords, ideally long and randomly generated, for all of your accounts and store them in a password manager. Enable two-factor authentication everywhere you can—that is, opt in to receiving a confirmation code on your phone or, ideally, inside a dedicated app to add a layer of security to sensitive accounts.
此外，要经常更新笔记本电脑、智能手机、互联网路由器以及各种应用程序。否则，未修补的安全漏洞意味着，点击恶意链接可能会让黑客窃取你浏览器中的Cookie和信息，并绕过双重身份验证等方法。这些额外步骤烦人吗？是的。但它们比黑客动用你的毕生积蓄，并从你的X账户发布比特币更烦人吗？不，不是。
In addition, frequently update laptops, smartphones, internet routers, and various applications. Otherwise, unpatched security flaws mean that clicking on a malicious link can allow a hacker to steal cookies and information from your browser and bypass even two-factor authentication methods. Are these extra steps annoying? Yes. But are they more annoying than having hackers dip into your life savings and post bitcoin s from your X account? No, they are not.
此外，还要特别警惕社会工程学攻击。网络钓鱼诈骗已经变得非常、非常高明：假冒客服网站现在经常出现在搜索结果中，并将你引导至AI语音客服，窃取你的私人信息。你可能会收到看起来像是来自老板、房地产经纪人、美国国税局官员——随你所指——的个性化短信。据报道，针对币安的历史性黑客攻击的第一步，始于一名员工点击了一个恶意链接。
Additionally, be extra wary of social engineering. Phishing scams have gotten really, really good: Fake customer-service websites now regularly turn up in search results and direct you to AI voice agents, ready to steal your private information. You may receive personalized texts that look like they’re from your boss, a real-estate agent, an IRS official—you name it. The first step in the historic hack on Binance reportedly started with an employee clicking on a malicious .
所以，要保持警惕，在点击前检查链接。这可以简单到将光标悬停在电子邮件中的超链接上，查看完整的网站地址，看是否有任何可疑之处（拼写错误、多余的单词和字符）。如果银行、电力公司或其他服务提供商的代表给你打电话，请通过拨打官方公司电话回拨来再次核实。
So, be on guard and inspect links before clicking. That can be as simple as hovering your cursor over a hyperlink in your email to view the full website address to see if anything looks suspicious (misspellings, extra words and characters). If a representative of your bank, power company, or another service provider calls you, double-check by calling them back on the official company number.
如果你开始采取这些基本步骤来应对AI驱动的网络攻击，你可能会开始想知道自己到底能走多远。在硅谷，这个行业资金充裕，且倾向于设想各种末日场景，许多人倾向于走极端。有影响力的投资者彼得·蒂尔，最近曾就“反基督”发表演讲，他在新西兰偏远地区拥有一处广阔的房产，曾计划在那里建造一座类似掩体的小屋，但被地方议会驳回了提案。
If you start taking these basic steps to prepare for AI-powered cyberattacks, you might start wondering just how far you can go. In Silicon Valley, an industry flush with money and people who tend to envision all kinds of apocalyptic scenarios, many tend to go to extremes. The influential investor Peter Thiel, who has recently given lectures about the “Antichrist,” has a sprawling property in a remote part of New Zealand on which he once planned to build a bunker-like cottage before a local council rejected the proposal.
2016年，萨姆·奥尔特曼告诉《纽约客》杂志，他拥有“枪支、黄金、碘化钾、抗生素、电池、水、以色列国防军的防毒面具，以及在大苏尔的一大片可以飞过去的土地”。这些是极端案例，但它们以自己的方式可以提供启示。
In 2016, Sam Altman told The New Yorker that he has “guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”These are edge cases, but they can be instructive in their own ways.
硅谷其他人正在进行不那么宏大的物理准备。AI安全组织Palisade Research的执行主任Jeffrey Ladish告诉我，他谨慎依赖云端存储数据。“也许值得准备一块硬盘或一些蓝光光盘，”里面存放照片和重要文件之类的东西。他还建议至少储备几天的食物和清洁水，以及手电筒和一些现金。“无论是大流感、龙卷风，还是黑客攻击瘫痪电网或银行，这些都可能有用，”他告诉我。我们的谈话提醒他去检查自己的物资。“我其实应该检查一下我的淡水，”他说。
Others in Silicon Valley are undertaking less grandiose physical preparations. Jeffrey Ladish, the executive director of the AI-safety group Palisade Research, told me that he’s cautious about relying on the cloud to store his data. “It might be worth having a hard drive or some Blu-ray discs” with, say, photos and important documents. He also suggests stocking up at least a few days of food and clean water, as well as flashlights and some cash. “These could be useful whether it’s a pandemic, whether it’s a tornado, whether hacking takes down the power grid or takes down the banks,” he told me. Our conversation reminded him to check his supplies. “I should actually check on my fresh water,” he said.
Gladstone AI公司的首席技术官Edouard Harris建议下载“你最关心的互联网部分”——对我来说，可能意味着保存我写的许多只存在于网上的《大西洋月刊》文章。如果你是参与加密货币的人，那可能意味着将其转移到“冷加密货币钱包”，也就是离线硬盘上。除此之外，Harris告诉我，“我的银行密码、核心电子邮件账户密码之类的东西，都不以数字形式保存。它们只是写在纸上。”
Edouard Harris, the chief technology officer of the AI-safety company Gladstone AI, recommended downloading “parts of the internet that you care about the most”—for me, that might mean saving the many Atlantic articles I’ve written that only exist online. If you’re the type who partakes in cryptocurrency, that could mean moving it to a “cold crypto wallet,” or an offline hard drive. On top of that, Harris told me, “my bank password, my core email-account password, things like that are just not saved in digital format. They’re just written down on paper.”
他担心AI驱动的黑客攻击会瘫痪关键基础设施，例如，可能会限制他获取电力或水的能力。这并非杞人忧天：今年夏天，网络攻击扰乱了全国各地的供水设施，并导致一座英国发电厂停机。对制冷系统的攻击可能会扰乱食品或医药供应链，让人们买不到杂货或必需药物。
He is worried about an AI-powered hack taking down crucial infrastructure, which could, for instance, limit his ability to get power or water. That’s not a far-fetched concern: This summer, cyberattacks disrupted water utilities across the country and shut down a British power plant. Attacks on refrigeration systems could disrupt food or pharmaceutical supply chains, leaving people without groceries or essential medication.
哈里斯向我描述的一种极端情景是，几乎任何连接互联网的设备都可能遭到攻击，包括你的汽车。哈里斯建立了一个名为“Endgame Ready”的网站，提供末日准备工具包。人工智能行业流传着许多类似的指南，名字如“末日包”和“生存大语言模型”，如果你下载后者，即使没有互联网服务，它也能提供生存建议。
In an extreme scenario that Harris described to me, nearly any device connected to the internet would come under attack, including your car. Harris built a website called Endgame Ready that offers a doomsday-prep kit. There are a number of similar guides circulating in the AI industry with names such as “Doomsday Pack” and a “Survival LLM” that can offer survival advice even, if you download the latter, in the absence of internet service.
哥伦比亚气候学院国家灾害预防中心副教授兼教职主任杰弗里·施莱格尔米尔奇将网络安全攻击比作任何其他类型的灾难。“如果你没有电力，那它是由地震引起还是由网络攻击引起，有什么区别？”他问我。在他看来，拉迪什等人建议的基本准备是合理的：地震或龙卷风发生时通常推荐的装备——几天的食物和水、手电筒以及电池供电收音机——依然适用。
Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, an associate professor and faculty director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School, likened cybersecurity attacks to any other kind of disaster. “If you don’t have power, what does it matter if it was caused by an earthquake or caused by a cyberattack?” he asked me. In this view, the basic preparations suggested by Ladish and others are sensible: The typical gear recommended in the event of an earthquake or tornado—a few days’s worth of food and water, a flashlight, and a battery-powered radio—still apply. (The National Center for Disaster Preparedness has an interactive guide for making such a kit.)
（国家灾害预防中心有一个制作此类工具包的交互式指南。）施莱格尔米尔奇说，最重要的是与邻居交朋友，并与他们一起制定计划，因为联系是“社区在灾难后表现如何的最强预测因素之一”。哈里斯更进一步，承认自己“在投入精力方面与众不同”。他实际上已将车辆与互联网断开连接，并使用55加仑的桶储水。对于有时间和资源的人，他建议将电子产品和硬盘存放在能屏蔽无线电频率的加固金属箱中，并同时购买一台柴火炉和一台3D打印机，以制造可能需要的任何零件。
The most important thing, Schlegelmilch said, is to befriend—and plan alongside—your neighbors, as connectedness is “one of the strongest predictors of how communities do in the aftermath of a disaster.”Harris has gone further still, acknowledging to me that he’s “unusual in how much effort I’ve put into this.”He has functionally disconnected his vehicle from the internet and uses 55-gallon drums to store water. For those with time and resources, he recommends storing electronics and hard drives in hardened, metal suitcases that block out radio frequencies, and buying both a wood stove and a 3-D printer to produce any parts you might need.
他还建议与朋友或家人共同出资购买一处“避难房产”作为避难之所，并将其设置为离网运行。
He also recommends pooling resources with friends or family to purchase a “bugout property,” on which to take refuge, and set it up to run off-grid.
其中一些很容易让人看热闹，我们许多人还有更紧迫的日常担忧，比如油价和杂货价格居高不下，以及高利率。但保持谨慎是明智的，世界各国政府也都在这样建议。你不必拥有一座偏远的小屋，不必降级自己的汽车，甚至不必为安装太阳能板攒钱。即使网络攻击没有导致广泛基础设施中断，最实际的步骤也是最容易采取的：检查你的数字卫生习惯，买菜时多买一些耐储的食品储备，在壁橱里备好手电筒和备用电池。
Some of this is easy to gawk at, and many of us have more pressing everyday concerns, such as the stubbornly high cost of gas and groceries and high interest rates. But it’s prudent to be careful, and governments around the world are advising just that. You don’t need to have a remote cottage, to downgrade your car, or even to save up for a solar panel to prepare. Even if cyberattacks don’t disrupt widespread infrastructure, the most practical steps are the easiest to take: Review your digital hygiene, pick up some durable pantry goods on a grocery run, have a flashlight and spare batteries in the closet.
无论你面对的是来自伊朗的人工智能驱动的黑客攻击，还是普通的停电，你都会庆幸自己有这些准备。
Whether you’re dealing with an AI-powered hack from Iran or just your run-of-the-mill brownout, you’ll be happy you have them.