{
 "public_id": "AIR-2025-0117",
 "incident_id": "2025-08-eset-promptlock",
 "date_disclosed": "2025-08-26",
 "date_occurred": null,
 "title": "PromptLock: Go ransomware that generates Lua payloads at runtime via a locally hosted gpt-oss-20b",
 "class": "research_demo",
 "attack_surface": "other",
 "initial_vector": "uploaded_sample_analysis",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "runtime_llm_script_generation",
  "local_model_api_abuse"
 ],
 "target_product": "Ollama-hosted gpt-oss-20b",
 "target_vendor": "OpenAI (open-weight model) / Ollama",
 "autonomy_level": "semi_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": false,
 "impact_type": [
  "ransomware_capability"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "None confirmed; samples uploaded to VirusTotal from the United States",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI02"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "ai_ransomware",
   "proof_of_concept",
   "misreported"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": null,
 "defense_bypassed": null,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/ransomware/first-known-ai-powered-ransomware-uncovered-eset-research/",
  "https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/threat-actor-usage-of-ai-tools"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "The PromptLock malware uses the gpt-oss-20b model from OpenAI locally via the Ollama API to generate malicious Lua scripts on the fly, which it then executes.",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Instructive case of vendor announcement outrunning the evidence. ESET announced 'the first known AI-powered ransomware' on 26 Aug 2025; on 3 Sept 2025 they updated the post after NYU academics identified the samples as artefacts of their own 'Ransomware 3.0: Self-Composing and LLM-Orchestrated' study. It was never deployed against anyone. GTIG independently classifies PROMPTLOCK as 'Experimental'. Class set to research_demo, not in_the_wild.",
 "risk_category": "security_fraud",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Ransomware & Extortion",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": true,
 "agency_reason": "the sample calls a local model and executes the Lua it returns",
 "vector_family": "other",
 "vector_detail": "uploaded_sample_analysis",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "unknown"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI02",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "multiple",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "external_researcher",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "unsafe_actuation",
 "eai_domain": "agent_behaviour",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "goal_misalignment"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Ransomware & Extortion",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI02 (eai_category=unsafe_actuation)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}