Cybercrooks are telling ChatGPT to create Malicious Code

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https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/06/chatgpt_cybercriminals_malicious_code/

Cybercriminals are beginning to use OpenAI's wildly popular ChatGPT technology to quickly and easily develop code for malicious purposes.

A spin around underground hacking sites uncovered initial instances of miscreants developing cyberthreat tools using the large language model (LLM) interface that the company unveiled in late November and opened it up for public use, according to infosec outfit Check Point Research. Similar to the rise of as-a-service models in the cybercrime world, ChatGPT opens up another avenue for less-skilled crooks to easily launch cyberattacks, the researchers said in a report Friday.

"As we suspected, some of the cases clearly showed that many cybercriminals using OpenAI have no development skills at all," they wrote. "Although the tools that we present in this report are pretty basic, it's only a matter of time until more sophisticated threat actors enhance the way they use AI-based tools for bad." Let's not forget that ChatGPT is also notorious for generating buggy code - Stack Overflow has banned software generated by the AI system because it's often seriously flawed. But the technology is improving and last month a Finnish government report warned AI systems are already in use for social engineering and in five years could drive a huge surge in attacks.

The analysts in December demonstrated how ChatGPT can be used to create an entire infection flow, from phishing emails to running a reverse shell. They also used the chatbot to build backdoor malware that can dynamically run scripts created by the AI tool. At the same time, they showed how it can help cybersecurity pros in their work. Now cybercriminals are testing it.

A thread titled "ChatGPT – Benefits of Malware" popped up December 29 on a widely used underground hacking forum written by a person who said they were experimenting with the interface to recreate common malware strains and techniques. The writer showed the code of a Python-based information stealer that searches for and copies file types and uploads them to a hardcoded FTP server. Check Point confirmed that the code was from a basic stealer malware. In another sample, the writer used ChatGPT to create a simple Java snippet that downloads a common SSH and telnet client that is run secretly on a system using PowerShell.

On December 21, a person calling themselves USDoD posted an encryption tool written in Python that includes various encryption, decryption, and signing operations. He wrote that OpenAI's technology gave him a "nice [helping] hand to finish the script with a nice scope." The researchers wrote that USDoD has limited development skills but is active in the underground community with a history of selling access to compromised organizations and stolen databases.

Another discussion thread published on a forum on New Year's Eve talked about how easy it is to use ChatGPT to create a dark web marketplace to trade illegal tools like malware or drugs and stolen data like accounts and payment cards. The thread's writer published some code created with ChatGPT that uses third-party APIs to get up-to-date prices for such cryptocurrency as Bitcoin, Monero, and Ethereum for the marketplace's payment system.

This week, miscreants talked on underground forums about other ways to leverage ChatGPT for various schemes, including using it with OpenAI's Dall-E 2 technology to create art to sell online through legitimate sites like Etsy and creating an ebook or short chapter on a specific topic that can be sold online. To get more information about how ChatGPT can be abused, the researchers asked ChatGPT. In its answer, ChatGPT talked about using the AI technology to create convincing phishing emails and social media posts to trick people into giving away personal information or to click on malicious links or to create video and audio that could be used for misinformation.

Cybercrooks are telling ChatGPT to create malicious code

Chatbot might let unskilled criminals launch attacks, if the code works

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