Security News > 2023 > October > LLMs lower the barrier for entry into cybercrime

"Without a doubt chatbots or large language models lower the barrier for entry to cybercrime, making it possible to create well-written phishing campaigns and generate malware that less capable coders could not produce alone," said Jack Chapman, VP of Threat Intelligence, Egress.

The number one phishing topic was missed voice messages, which accounted for 18.4% of phishing attacks between January to September 2023, making them the most phished topic for the year so far.

Many of these attacks use HTML smuggling to hide their payload. The potential for cybercriminals to use chatbots to create phishing campaigns and malware has been cause for concern, but is it possible to tell whether a phishing email has been written by a chatbot? The report found that no person or tool can definitively tell whether an attack was written by a chatbot.

The proportion of phishing emails employing obfuscation techniques has jumped by 24.4% in 2023, sitting at 55.2%. Obfuscation enables cybercriminals to hide their attacks from certain detection mechanisms.

The research found a direct correlation between the volume of graymail and the volume of phishing emails received; people with busier inboxes are more likely to be targeted by phishing campaigns.

More phishing emails are getting through traditional perimeter detection, so while overall volume hasn't increased, attacks are increasing in sophistication and cybercriminals use a multitude of tactics to successfully get through perimeter email security.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/10/05/traditional-perimeter-detection/