ChatGPT and more: What AI chatbots mean for the future of cybersecurity

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From relatively simple tasks, such as composing emails, to more complex jobs, including writing essays or compiling code, ChatGPT -- the AI-driven natural language processing tool from OpenAI -- has been generating huge interest since its launch.

It is by no means perfect, of course -- it's known to make mistakes and errors as it misinterprets the information it's learning from, but many see it, and other AI tools, as the future of how we'll use the internet. 

The best AI chatbots: ChatGPT and other interesting alternatives to try

AI chatbots and writers can help lighten your workload by writing emails and essays and even doing math. They use artificial intelligence to generate text or answer queries based on user input. ChatGPT is one popular example, but there are other noteworthy chatbots.

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Following launch, it wasn't long before cyber criminals were posting threads on underground forums about how ChatGPT could be used to help facilitate malicious cyber activity, such as writing phishing emails or helping to compile malware.  

"You can have it create a nicely formulated, grammatically correct invite that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do if you were not a native English speaker." 

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But abusing these tools isn't exclusive to just email; criminals could use it to help write script for any text-based online platform. For attackers running scams, or even advanced cyber-threat groups attempting to conduct espionage campaigns, this could be a useful tool -- especially for creating fake social profiles to reel people in. 

"If you want to generate plausible business speak nonsense for LinkedIn to make it look like you're a real businessperson trying to make connections, ChatGPT is great for that," says Kelly Shortridge, a cybersecurity expert and senior principal product technologist at cloud-computing provider Fastly. 

Various hacking groups attempt to exploit LinkedIn and other social media platforms as tools for conducting cyber-espionage campaigns. But creating fake but legitimate-looking online profiles -- and filling them with posts and messages -- is a time-consuming process.

Shortridge thinks that attackers could use AI tools such as ChatGPT to write convincing content while also having the benefit of being less labour-intensive than doing the work manually.  

"A lot of those kinds of social-engineering campaigns require a lot of effort because you have to set up those profiles," she says, arguing that AI tools could lower the barrier to entry considerably.

"I'm sure that ChatGPT could write very convincing-sounding thought leadership posts," she says. 

The nature of technological innovation means that, whenever something new emerges, there will always be those who try to exploit it for malicious purposes. And even with the most innovative means of attempting to prevent abuse, the sneaky nature of cyber criminals and fraudsters means they're likely to find means of circumnavigating protections. 

"There's no way to completely eliminate abuse to zero. It's never happened with any system," says Shykevich, who hopes that highlighting potential cybersecurity issues will mean there's more discussion around how to prevent AI chatbots from being exploited for errant purposes. 

"It's a great technology -- but, as always with new technology, there are risks and it's important to discuss them to be aware of them. And I think the more we discuss, the more likely it is OpenAI and similar companies will invest more in reducing abuse," he suggests.  

See also

• How to use ChatGPT to write Excel formulas
• How to use ChatGPT to write code
• ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which AI chatbot should you use?
• How to use ChatGPT to build your resume
• How does ChatGPT work?
• How to get started using ChatGPT

There's also an upside for cybesecurity in AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT. They are particularly good at dealing with and understanding code, so there's potential to use them to help defenders understand malware. As they can also write code, it's possible that, by assisting developers with their projects, these tools can help to create better and more secure code quicker, which is good for everyone. 

As Forrester principal analyst Jeff Pollard wrote recently, ChatGPT could provide a massive reduction in the amount of time taken to produce security incident reports. 

"Turning those around faster means more time doing the other stuff -- testing, assessing, investigating, and responding, all of which helps security teams scale," he notes, adding that a bot could suggest next-recommended actions based on available data. 

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