ChatGPT to ThreatGPT: Generative AI Impact in Cybersecurity and Privacy

OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, and the arrival of ChatGPT caused a significant disruption in the AI/ML community.

In the last decade, the rapid evolution of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) has sparked a striking digital revolution.

From supervised learning to groundbreaking advancements, AI and ML have swiftly progressed with the development of the following things:-

• Unsupervised learning
• Semi-supervised learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Deep learning

Generative AI, the latest frontier of technology, employs deep neural networks to learn patterns and structures from extensive training data, which enables the creation of similar new content.

A recently published research paper explores the potential risks, limitations, challenges, and opportunities of GenAI in the field of cybersecurity and privacy.

Evolution of AI Model

At the moment, the tech industry currently races to create highly advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) capable of executing humanlike conversations. Here below, we have mentioned a few outcomes:-

• Microsoft’s GPT model
• Google’s Bard
• Meta’s LLaMa

Generative models’ performance surged with deep learning’s arrival. N-gram language modeling, an early method, generates the best sequence using learned word distribution.

GenAI has made progress in multiple fields, including:-

• Image processing
• Speech recognition
• Text understanding

ChatGPT is mainly based on GPT-3 language model, while the latest version, which is a paid one, ChatGPT Plus, is completely based on GPT-4 language model.

Effect of GenAI on Cybersecurity & Privacy

The evolution of the digital landscape not only upgrades the current tech era but, also raises the cyber threat actors’ sophistication.

In the past, cyberspace dealt with high-volume but unsophisticated intrusions. AI-aided attacks are conducted by threat actors in this new era, transforming and evolving the complete cyberattack vectors.

GenAI tools’ evolution proves a double-edged sword in cybersecurity, benefiting both sided players:-

• Defenders
• Attackers

Leveraging ChatGPT, defenders safeguard systems against intruders, and these tools mainly rely on LLMs that are trained on vast cyber threat intelligence data, including:-

• Vulnerabilities
• Attack patterns
• Indications of attack

However, the risk of GenAI misuse in cybersecurity cannot be underestimated. Attackers exploit the GenAI to extract information or bypass the policies of OpenAI. They harness its generative power for various attacks, such as:-

• Social engineering Attack
• Phishing attack
• Attack payload
• Malicious code snippets

OpenAI’s ethical policy prevents LLMs like ChatGPT from aiding the threat actors with malicious information. However, the threat actors can bypass these restrictions using various malicious techniques, such as:-

• Jailbreaking
• Reverse psychology
• Prompt Injection Attacks
• ChatGPT-4 Model escaping

Attackers can exploit ChatGPT’s text generation to craft attack payloads, and not only that even automating ransomware and malware development with ChatGPT accelerates the creation of diverse threats, saving time and doesn’t require significant skill.

Some viruses can crack computer CPUs, particularly by reading kernel memory. Once a virus gains access to kernel memory, it has unrestricted control over the entire system.

Polymorphic malware is a sophisticated type of malicious software that continuously modifies its code to evade antivirus detection. Exploiting ChatGPT’s generative power could enable the creation of polymorphic malware that could pose a potential abuse risk.

ChatGPT’s Role in Cyber Defense

With advancing technology, enterprises will witness emerging cybersecurity defense use cases for ChatGPT. Incorporating diverse technical, organizational, and procedural controls ensures effective measures.

Here below we have mentioned the cybersecurity defense use cases for ChatGPT:-

• Cyberdefense Automation
• Cybersecurity reporting
• Threat Intelligence
• Secure Code Generation and Detection
• Identification of Cyber Attacks
• Developing Ethical Guidelines
• Enhancing the Effectiveness of Cybersecurity Technologies
• Incidence Response Guidance
• Malware Detection

ChatGPT’s Social, legal, and ethical implications

Here below we have mentioned all the implications:-

• The Pervasive Role of ChatGPT
• Controversy Over Data Ownership and Rights
• Unauthorized Access to User Conversations and Data Breaches
• Misuse by Organizations and Employees
• Misuse of Personal Information
• Hallucinations: A Challenge to Tackle
• Cyber Offense and Malcode Generation

GenAI-powered tools like ChatGPT have greatly influenced society. Humans embrace them for several creations like:-

• Spanning image creation
• Text writing
• Music Composition

This technology saturates various domains, including cybersecurity, and it also shapes the evolution of organizational cybersecurity, offering both power and threat.