Rebby: Welcome to FinTech TV. Public blockchains were built to be radically transparent, yet cybercrime syndicates, as well as state-sponsored hackers continue to test the boundaries of on-chain integrity. Well joining us to break down the illicit threat landscape is Ari Redford, global head of policy at TRM Labs. Ari, great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me.
Ari Redford: Rebby, so great to join you, and this is just absolutely wild. I love being with you at a conference or there's just so much energy around. 2020.
Rebby: Yeah, and we're on the ground here at Money 2020 in Las Vegas, and what a year it has been, what a conference it has been. We are all focused on artificial intelligence, but as always, I do want to get your expertise when it comes to fraud as well as scams. So how are all of these themes converging?
Ari Redford: Yeah, no, thank you so much. Um, it is this really extraordinary moment in human history where we have this transformative technology. And bad actors are always early adopters of transformative technology, you know, the automobile, end to end encrypted messaging apps, crypto, and now AI. Um, we saw about a 500% increase in the use of AI for scams and fraud over the course of the last year. That means, uh, scammers using deep fake technology, right? The, uh, the, the days of Nigerian princes and broken English are gone, right? It's these very, very tailored phishing attacks, deep fake videos of your boss or your mother. I mean, we're really in this extraordinary moment. We've also seen a surge in cyberattacks, right? The use of AI kits on dark net markets by ransomware actors. So we're really, really seeing bad actors leverage this technology at scale, but at the same time we're seeing law enforcement, national security agencies also leverage this technology to fight back.
Rebby: Yeah, and you and I have talked about scams and fraud and what's been unfolding in 2026, but in this specific moment in time, especially because we're at Money 2020, the key theme has always been about trust, especially when we're talking about this intersection of Tradfi and D5. But in reality, what can be done right now, especially as bad actors leverage and harness artificial intelligence?
Ari Redford: I think, I think in large part, like we are going to see standards develop and you, you and I have talked for years about sort of the regulatory landscape at crypto. Uh, this is even more complicated, right? Because it touches every aspect of life and we're going to see regulation around this. We're going to see guardrails, um, and we're continuing to see those conversations. But to me, it's actually beyond that. It's like, hey, you know, we need to leverage this technology. We used to use it and use it wisely. And I think that's really what we're seeing more and more of. We announced, um, a, uh, a new platform called Ardence last week, which really for the first time takes our blockchain data. Um, all of that sort of financial crime, illicit activity within the crypto ecosystem, and it actually marries it with off-chain data from about 50 partners. So think Flashpoint for threat intelligence and cloud bursts. Think shipping records, think Charon, um, ad tech data. And when I say that, it's like for the first time ever, we can do this, we can combine on and off-chain insights. Why? Because of AI. Because we could run AI all over all of these data sets. So, uh, my biggest takeaway right now, and it really has been for a really long time, is that it's like, we have to leverage transformative technology for good, not just let the bad actors use it.
Rebby: Yeah, and when we take a look at the macro landscape in 2026, a lot has happened geopolitically, as well as politically within the US. So when we're talking about national security, we also need to think about how artificial intelligence is being utilized. So what is the reality and how are you separating the noise and the signal?
Ari Redford: Absolutely, I, I think that, um, you know, every day we're reading, you know, you and I, right before we jumped on, we'll talk about how we've never felt more like we're living in sci-fi than ever before. You know, when you watch Minority Report, when you watch Terminator, when you watch these shows, it's like, wow, my goodness. And I think, you know, when we read about rogue agents, uh, we start to try to understand, you know, what's going on. We read about cyberattacks using AI on critical infrastructure, water, electric, you know, hospitals are the number one target for ransomware attacks. And um you asked about sort of the geopolitical piece to this. Well, if there were 5000 ransomware attacks last year, I think TRM put out a report that said there were about 7500 ransomware attacks last year. Well, if now anyone can, can, can do ransomware, if we could use Agentic ransomware affiliates, that 7500 could be 75 million. And that's a civilization level threat, right? That's when people are in the streets, when hospital systems around the world are taken down. But again, we could be leveraging the same technology to run that technology over hospital systems, over water filtration, over power grids to find malware vulnerabilities, right, and detect them and plug them before ultimately we have these types of attacks. So like, you know, we are in this incredible historic moment and you know I have kids. Um, when you think about sort of the geopolitical, the future of, of, of all of this, I think to myself, wow, like, we need to ensure that we are leveraging this technology for good, and that's what our 100% focus is at TRM.
Rebby: Yeah, and Ari, finally, before I let you go, you mentioned leveraging and also identifying and utilizing uh where this technology should be, especially with malware, but where else and how can we actually be leveraging?
Ari Redford: Yeah, what's what's so extraordinary, you know, I, uh, I was on a panel a couple weeks ago at the Philadelphia Fed, and there was someone from Amazon on my panel, someone from Mastercard, and you know, I was there to talk about what we're talking about today, the threats, the risks, the scams, but they were talking about the future of magenta commerce. Uh, and I literally on the train ride home from Philly to DC I jumped on Claude. I built an agent to go find me the Caitlin Clark one Nike shoe that was being released a couple of days later. And I put in my Dick's account, my Foot Locker account, my Nike account. And I said, set up an agent that at 9:00 a.m. on October 1st can find me these shoes in a men's 10, 10.5. And, uh, lo and behold, uh, at 9:01, I had the shoe in my Dick's shopping cart, paid for it, and 4 days later, I got these, these shoes. Um, why am I telling the story? Because this is going to be everything. It's going to be how we shop. It's going to revolutionize healthcare, drug discoveries, um, how we work. I mean, I, I imagine that you are using it in, in the production that you do today, you know, in all kinds of creative ways. So, you know, I'm focused all the time on how bad guys are using it, but I'm so much more excited about the, the, the real use cases out there and this. I, I know, in a year or so, this shopping experience that I had will be super mundane and everyone will do it. But right now I'm like, wow, this is incredible, you're able to do, you know, interact this way, and, and our agents are gonna be interacting with each other. So, to me it's this transformative moment.
Rebby: And as we look ahead, Ari, one last thing that I thought about is we are focused on progress when it comes to artificial intelligence, but for viewers out there, for retail investors as well as consumers, what are some safety tips that you would suggest?
Ari Redford: Yeah, absolutely. I, I would say, you know, obviously we're being very, you need to be very, very careful about how you're using this technology. Any technology, right? Um, and I think that's always thinking about like what type of information are you putting in? Are you double, triple checking? Is there a human in the loot, right? Um, I think that we still are at the point now where we want to be very careful about how we are, um, you know, providing information to AI tools. Um, but most importantly, are we checking? Are we double-checking? Are we making sure that the facts are right here? If it's, you know, content that we're putting out, um, and I think a lot of it is like, hey, are we giving too much information? Are we putting a lot of PII into these tools, right? Because bad actors are also going to use them. They're gonna be use them for attacks, and we want to be really careful about what information we're feeding these tools.
Rebby: Well, I, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for sharing all of your insights as well as your perspective.
Ari Redford: Thank you so much for having me.
