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OpenAI ChatGPT for Cybersecurity
21.07.2023
What we know about ChatGPT
- Chat GPT and NextGPT (GPT-4 implemented in Microsoft Bing and paid version of ChatGPT) have received much attention worldwide, especially in the Cybersecurity industry.
- Chat GPT is a state-of-the-art language generation model that can produce coherent and convincing texts on almost any topic, given a few words or sentences as input. Developed by OpenAI in November 2022, a research organization dedicated to creating artificial intelligence (AI) that can benefit humanity, ChatGPT has been hailed as a breakthrough in natural language processing (NLP), a branch of AI that deals with understanding and generating human languages.
- ChatGPT is built on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 family of large language models. It is fine-tuned with supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. It can be used for various applications such as chatbots, content creation, summarization, etc.
What does ChatGPT mean for the cybersecurity industry?
How can it be used to enhance the security of organizations and individuals, and how can it be exploited by malicious actors to launch sophisticated cyberattacks? Let's explore some of the benefits and risks of ChatGPT in cybersecurity, and offer recommendations on how to use it responsibly and ethically.
Benefits and use cases of chat GPT for cybersecurity
Phishing detection and prevention: Chat GPT in previous versions (December version) could be used to generate realistic phishing emails and messages that can test the security awareness of employees and users. But in ChatGPT March version, when you ask ChatGPT to write a phishing mail, you received message a message about a potential wrongdoing and and ethical issue consideration. But, there’s a way to bypass this with good question formulation - you can ask to create email for employees for end of year bonuses and insert a malicious link into that email and extort informations from company’s employees.
Scanning networks: A key activity in cybersecurity that helps identify potential vulnerabilities and threats. ChatGPT can help you with scanning networks by integrating the Metasploit framework. It would give you thorough explanations how to scan a target network:
- Pentesting: Penetration testing, or "pentesting," is a method of testing the security of a computer system or network by simulating a real-world attack. ChatGPT not only gives you key steps involves into condusting pentest, but also can help you with real-world pentesting – it can assist in scanning SMB vulnerabilities with Nmap:
Malware analysis and reverse engineering: Chat GPT can be used to generate natural language descriptions and explanations of malware code and behavior. This can help malware analysts and reverse engineers to understand the logic and purpose of malicious software, and to find vulnerabilities and weaknesses in them. Chat GPT can also be used to create malware reports and summaries that can communicate the findings and recommendations to other stakeholders.
- Threat intelligence and situational awareness: Chat GPT can be used to generate threat intelligence reports and alerts that can inform cybersecurity professionals and researchers about the latest trends, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of cyber adversaries. Chat GPT can also be used to create situational awareness dashboards and visualizations that can provide a comprehensive overview of the current cyber threat landscape and the potential risks and impacts.
Cybersecurity education and training: Chat GPT can be used to create interactive and engaging cybersecurity courses and tutorials that can teach users and students about various cybersecurity topics and concepts. Chat GPT can also be used to create cybersecurity quizzes and assessments that can evaluate the knowledge and skills of learners or to create cybersecurity games and simulations that can provide a fun and immersive learning experience.
Write and debug computer programs that can automate security tasks or test security systems: ChatGPT can generate code in Python, Java, C#, and more, based on a few keywords or a description of the desired functionality. ChatGPT can also detect and fix errors in existing code, such as syntax errors, logical errors, or vulnerabilities. ChatGPT can help security professionals develop tools that can simplify or enhance their work, such as scripts, bots, scanners, or exploits.
Challenges and limitations
Chat GPT is not a perfect solution for cybersecurity, however. There are some challenges and limitations that need to be considered when using chat GPT for cybersecurity purposes:
Data quality and availability: Chat GPT relies on large amounts of data to train its model and generate text. However, not all data is suitable or available for cybersecurity applications. For example, some data may be sensitive, confidential, or proprietary, which may limit the access or usage of chat GPT. Some data may also be noisy, incomplete, or outdated, which may affect the quality or accuracy of chat GPT's output.
Ethical and legal issues: Chat GPT may raise some ethical and legal issues when used for cybersecurity purposes. For example, chat GPT may be used for malicious or deceptive purposes, such as creating fake news, propaganda, or disinformation. Chat GPT may also infringe on the privacy or intellectual property rights of individuals or organizations, such as by revealing personal or confidential information, or by plagiarizing or copying existing content.
Human oversight and verification: Chat GPT is not infallible or trustworthy by itself. It may generate text that is inaccurate, irrelevant, biased, or harmful. Therefore, human oversight and verification are essential when using chat GPT for cybersecurity purposes. Humans need to monitor, review, edit, or validate chat GPT's output before using it for any decision making or action taking.
Sources of information: There are no sources of information that ChatGPT serves us (like Microsoft’s Bing AI version).
Information accuracy: Information may not be accurate, so it is obligatory to always validate results.
By understanding the benefits and use cases of ChatGPT for cybersecurity, as well as the challenges and limitations of ChatGPT for cybersecurity, we can use ChatGPT more effectively and responsibly for our cybersecurity goals.
Learning steps
Further interested in learning about artificial intelligence technologies? Eccentrix provides certified AI training as part as one of the Microsoft Azure certifications track - Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI102). Moreover, since this writing is about cybersecurity, we offer a range of certified information security and cyberdefense helping professionals increase knowledge in key cybersecurity domains.
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