A New Threat to Artists: Hackers Threaten to Feed Stolen Art to AI

Hackers have begun using stolen artwork from Artists&Clients as leverage for extortion, following an August 30 infiltration of the platform that connects artists with clients and manages commissions. In a threatening message, they claimed all files were encrypted and demanded the site pay $50,000 in Bitcoin or Monero before data would be decrypted and the stolen content deleted.

The operation is attributed to a group called LunaLock, a name assigned by security researchers rather than the attackers themselves, which is known for ransomware campaigns. The attackers warned that failing to pay would see all the artists’ works released into AI training datasets, potentially allowing AI models to mimic the creators’ styles if the dataset is large enough.

Since the breach, Artists&Clients has remained offline, and it is unclear whether the ransom will be paid; if backups exist, recovery should not be overly difficult, according to Daily CyberSecurity.