ChatGPT has come on the scene with a bang. The artificial intelligence-powered chatbot from OpenAI has millions of users, impressing them with its ability to generate everything from code to essays and lyrics.
However, one concern that has been raised is whether or not this kind of technology will be a silver bullet for cybercriminals and increase the number of cyber threats. In short, the answer is no — while ChatGPT is certainly impressive, it is unlikely to add much to the arsenal of cybercriminals.
The writing of emails or contact forms used for social engineering is often done with poor grammar and syntax on purpose — this is to fish for people who may be more likely to respond. Additionally, many emails and contact forms will be scanned for indicators of threat like the headers, senders, attachments, and URLs. Even in cases like business email compromise, the malicious actor will want to copy the tone used by the victim’s account.
ChatGPT isn’t useful for propagating advanced persistent threats either, since these are usually highly detailed and specific operations which won’t work well when launched at scale. ChatGPT is also a poor help for malware; it does not make the resulting code any better at evading protective software or infecting machines. To launch an attack, the malicious actor will still have to undertake a lot of menial tasks Rotating their infrastructure, registering domains, etc.
While it is unlikely to be a silver bullet, ChatGPT still can be of some use. It can be used to launch conversations with victims en masse, though most threat actors won’t have a use for it right now.
To protect your organization from cyber threats, regardless of whether they use ChatGPT or not, it is important to have a robust, multi-layered approach. This includes having technology and software in place as well as training staff to be aware of potential threats and be able to recognize the classic signs.
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