Chatbots to ChatGPT in a Cybersecurity Space: Evolution, Vulnerabilities, Attacks, Challenges, and Future Recommendations

TL;DR

This paper reviews the evolution of chatbots from rule-based systems to ChatGPT, analyzes cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities associated with them, and discusses future strategies to mitigate these risks in the AI-driven landscape.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of chatbot development, details specific cybersecurity vulnerabilities in ChatGPT, and proposes future directions for enhancing security in AI chatbots.

Findings

ChatGPT has been exploited to generate malware, phishing emails, and undetectable zero-day attacks.

Cybercriminals exploit chatbot vulnerabilities for malicious activities.

Strategies are needed to mitigate cybersecurity threats in AI chatbots.

Abstract

Chatbots shifted from rule-based to artificial intelligence techniques and gained traction in medicine, shopping, customer services, food delivery, education, and research. OpenAI developed ChatGPT blizzard on the Internet as it crossed one million users within five days of its launch. However, with the enhanced popularity, chatbots experienced cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. This paper discussed the relevant literature, reports, and explanatory incident attacks generated against chatbots. Our initial point is to explore the timeline of chatbots from ELIZA (an early natural language processing computer program) to GPT-4 and provide the working mechanism of ChatGPT. Subsequently, we explored the cybersecurity attacks and vulnerabilities in chatbots. Besides, we investigated the ChatGPT, specifically in the context of creating the malware code, phishing emails, undetectable zero-day attacks, and generation of macros and LOLBINs. Furthermore, the history of cyberattacks and vulnerabilities exploited by cybercriminals are discussed, particularly considering the risk and vulnerabilities in ChatGPT. Addressing these threats and vulnerabilities requires specific strategies and measures to reduce the harmful consequences. Therefore, the future directions to address the challenges were presented.