ChatGPT's popularity in the darknet grew by 625%

[Viper Carder]

Hackers are actively looking for ways to turn chat bot into cyber weapons.

According to Proxy's cybersecurity researchers, more and more cybercriminals are looking for ways to use ChatGPT in their activities.

The number of new posts on the ChatGPT darknet forums increased from 120 in January to 870 in February — an increase of 625%. The number of new topics in the ChatGPT forums has grown by 145% — from 37 to 91 per month — since the use of the bot has become the hottest topic of the darknet.

Among the most popular topics on the forums:

• how to get ChatGPT to create malware;
• how to crack ChatGPT;
• how to use it for cyber attacks.

In addition, according to experts from Norton IB, the ability to chat-bottom to compile texts indistinguishable from « human » writing can potentially lead to phishing attacks. At the forums, intruders are looking for ways to get ChatGPT to conduct such attacks, overcoming the content limitations of chat work.

It is noteworthy that hackers have already developed a way to circumvent ChatGPT restrictions using the chat-bot API version and use it to sell services to other cybercriminals so that they can create malicious programs and phishing emails.

Proxy experts expressed their concern that over the past month, discussions in the darknet have turned from simple « fraud » and workarounds designed to encourage ChatGPT to do something funny or unexpected, in gaining full control over the tool and turning it into a weapon.