Russian hackers plant nuclear weapon prompt in malware to trip AI safety guardrails

Russian state hackers are trying to interfere with AI-assisted malware analysis in Ukraine by deliberately setting off AI safety mechanisms, ESET has found. The technique, named GuardBreaker by ESET, appeared in a malicious VBS script tied to UAC-0099, a Russia-aligned group previously observed conducting initial-access operations and handing validated targets to the GRU-linked Sandworm hackers. The manipulative prompt UAC-0099 embedded as comments in the VBS script (Source: ESET) “The analyzed