The Army envisions acquiring technologies that use machine learning to autonomously detect and address software vulnerabilities and network misconfigurations – routine mistakes that could offer attackers an entry point onto its systems. Another reason organizations are turning to AI-powered cyber defenses: to counter the threat posed by intelligent cyber weapons. In February 2018, a group of more than two dozen researchers representing the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and nonprofit organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and OpenAI, issued a groundbreaking report warning that AI technologies could amplify the destructive power available to nation-states and criminal enterprises. The report outlines dozens of ways attackers could use artificial intelligence to their advantage, from generating automated spear-phishing attacks capable of reliably fooling their human targets, to triggering ransomware attacks using voice or facial recognition, to designing malware that mimics normal user behavior to evade detection. Although there haven't yet been confirmed cases of AI-enabled cyberattacks, the researchers conclude that, "the pace of progress in AI suggests the likelihood of cyber attacks leveraging machine learning capabilities in the wild soon, if they have not done so already." Pentagon officials appear to be taking the threat seriously.