Most UK IT leaders believe that foreign states are already using the ChatGPT chatbot for malicious purposes against other nations. That’s according to a new study from BlackBerry, which surveyed 500 UK IT decision makers revealing that, while 60% of respondents see ChatGPT as generally being used for “good” purposes, 72% are concerned by its potential to be used for malicious purposes when it comes to cybersecurity. In fact, almost half (48%) predicted that a successful cyberattack will be credited to the technology within the next 12 months. The findings follow recent research which showed how attackers can use ChatGPT to significantly enhance phishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams.
UK IT leaders fearful of malicious exploitation of ChatGPT’s capabilities
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s free chatbot based on GPT-3.5, was released on November 30, 2022, and racked up a million users in five days. It is capable of writing emails, essays, code, and phishing emails, if the user knows how to ask. Blackberry’s study found that attackers’ ability to use these capabilities to help craft more believable and legitimate sounding phishing emails is a top concern for 57% of the UK IT leaders surveyed. This was followed by the increase in sophistication of threat attacks (51%) and the ability to accelerate new social engineering attacks (49%).
Almost half of UK-based IT directors are concerned by ChatGPT’s potential to be used for spreading…
