Hackers Moving To AI But Lacking Behind The Defenders In Adoption Rates

Hackers were actively exploiting the generative AI for cyber attacks; not only that, even threat actors are also exploring new ways to exploit other advanced LLMs like ChatGPT.

They could leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI for several malicious purposes like phishing, social engineering, malware generation, credential stuffing attacks, fake news, disinformation, automated hacking and many more.

Cybersecurity researchers at Tren Micro recently identified that hackers are actively moving to AI, but lacking behind the defenders in adoption rates.

Hackers Moving To AI

The criminal underworld has experienced a rise of “jailbreak-as-a-service” offerings that give anonymous access to legitimate language models like ChatGPT and have prompts that are constantly updated to bypass ethical restrictions.

Free Webinar on Live API Attack Simulation: Book Your Seat | Start protecting your APIs from hackers

Some services, such as EscapeGPT and LoopGPT, openly advertise jailbreaks, while others like BlackhatGPT first pretend to be exclusive criminal LLM providers before revealing they just sit on top of OpenAI’s API with jailbreaking prompts.

EscapeGPT (Source – Trend Micro)

This ever-changing contest between lawbreakers who intend to beat AI censorship and providers who try to stop their products from being cracked has caused a new illegal market for unrestricted conversational AI capabilities.

BlackHatGPT (Source – Trend Micro)

Flowgpt.com is one of the platforms that LoopGPT can leverage to create language models that are specific to individual system prompts which can potentially provide room for “illegal” or open AI assistants. 

Moreover, there has been a surge in fraudulent unverified offerings that only make claims of being very powerful but lack any proof, and these may be scams or abandoned projects like FraudGPT that were heavily advertised but never confirmed.

Threat actors are leveraging generative AI for two main purposes:-

  • Developing malware and malicious tools, similar to widespread LLM adoption by software developers.
  • Improving social engineering tactics by crafting scam scripts, and scaling phishing campaigns with urgency/multi-language capabilities enabled by LLMs.

Spam toolkits like GoMailPro and Predator have integrated ChatGPT features for email content translation/generation. 

Deepfake image (Source – Trend Micro)

Additionally, deepfake services are emerging, with criminals offering celebrity image and video manipulation from $10-$500+, including targeted offerings to bypass KYC verification at financial institutions using synthetic identities. 

Overall, generative AI expands threat actors’ capabilities across coding and social engineering domains.

Is Your Network Under Attack? - Read CISO’s Guide to Avoiding the Next Breach - Download Free Guide

Tushar Subhra

Tushar is a Cyber security content editor with a passion for creating captivating and informative content. With years of experience under his belt in Cyber Security, he is covering Cyber Security News, technology and other news.

Recent Posts

Implementing Identity First Security for Zero Trust Architectures

Zero Trust is a security framework that operates under the assumption that no implicit trust…

6 hours ago

InvokeADCheck – New Powershell Module for Active Directory Assessment

Orange Cyberdefense has announced the development of InvokeADCheck, a new PowerShell module designed to streamline…

9 hours ago

Detecting Malicious Activities With Traffic Distribution Systems

Traffic Distribution Systems (TDS) have emerged as critical tools for both legitimate and malicious purposes,…

9 hours ago

Hackers Deploy Advanced Social Engineering Tactics in Phishing Attacks

Cybercriminals are evolving their phishing methods, employing more sophisticated social engineering tactics to deceive their…

9 hours ago

Cybercriminals Exploit Compromised Email Servers for Fraudulent Campaigns

Trend Micro's Managed XDR team has recently investigated a sophisticated Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack…

9 hours ago

Identifying Cyber Attack Patterns Through Threat Actor Infrastructure Analysis

Kudelski Security Research recently published an article detailing advanced methods for tracking and analyzing threat…

9 hours ago