Diagnostic AI may be vulnerable to cyberattacks, UPMC study shows

A study published in Nature Communications this week investigated whether adversarial images could fool an artificial intelligence model developed to diagnose breast cancer.

University of Pittsburgh researchers were able to simulate an attack that falsified mammogram images, leading the model – and human experts – to draw incorrect conclusions.  

"What we want to show with this study is that this type of attack is possible, and it could lead AI models to make the wrong diagnosis – which is a big patient safety issue," senior author Shandong Wu, associate professor of radiology, biomedical informatics and bioengineering at Pitt, said in a statement.   

"By understanding how AI models behave under adversarial