Solana Foundation CISO Says AI-Driven Scams Are Emerging as a New Industry Threat

Advances in artificial intelligence are driving a rise in sophisticated phishing and identity fraud, creating a new threat to the industry that depends on deceiving people rather than exploiting technical vulnerabilities.

Solana Foundation Chief Information Security Officer Michael Coates told CoinDesk on August 1 that many of the major security incidents in recent months began not with smart-contract vulnerabilities, but with more sophisticated breaches involving fake identities and AI-based scams. He said those threats will become a core challenge for blockchain security.

Coates urged the industry to pay close attention to AI-powered social engineering attacks. Rather than hacking a blockchain directly, those schemes approach victims and steal sensitive information such as private keys and seed phrases. Common examples include romance scams and pig-butchering scams.

Advances in AI and deepfakes will make social engineering attacks far more severe, Coates said. Fake phone calls that mimic the voice of someone victims know could also become commonplace.

He added that it is unrealistic for users to identify every scam perfectly. That makes layered security systems necessary so other safeguards can prevent losses even when someone is deceived.