OpenAI has taken significant action by banning several ChatGPT accounts believed to be operated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and two Chinese hacking groups. These accounts were reportedly involved in malicious activities, including developing malware and engaging in social media automation, with aims such as researching U.S. satellite communication technologies.

According to OpenAI’s threat intelligence report, the Russian threat actors utilized the platform to refine Windows malware, debug code, and establish command-and-control infrastructures. The campaign, referred to as ScopeCreep, was characterized by the adversaries’ use of temporary email accounts to create multiple ChatGPT accounts, allowing them to incrementally improve their malware without detection.

This malware, once developed, was distributed via a fake tool that mimicked a legitimate video game overlay, leading to the infection of systems with a malware loader. This loader was programmed to fetch additional malicious payloads from external servers and execute them. The malware’s design included advanced features aimed at privilege escalation, stealth persistence, notifying the attackers upon victim compromise, and exfiltrating sensitive data while avoiding detection.

OpenAI further detailed the complexity of the malware, which included techniques such as Base64 encoding to obscure payloads, DLL side-loading, and utilizing SOCKS5 proxies for obfuscation. The malware aimed to collect credentials, tokens, and cookies from web browsers and had mechanisms to alert its operators via Telegram.

Additionally, two Chinese hacking groups, known as ATP5 and APT15, were also identified using ChatGPT for nefarious purposes, including technical research and software development related to cybersecurity breaches. They engaged with the AI to modify system configurations and create brute-force scripts, contributing to various cyber operations.

OpenAI’s intelligence report highlighted several other malicious operations exploiting the AI for different kinds of illicit activities. This included orchestrating deceptive employment campaigns using AI-generated materials, generating geopolitical social media posts, and producing multidisciplinary multimedia content for political and social manipulation.

The actions taken by OpenAI underscore the ongoing challenges of cybersecurity in an age where advanced technologies can be misused for malicious intent. The firm’s commitment to countering these threats reflects a broader concern over AI’s role in cybercrime and the necessity for collaborative efforts to mitigate such risks.

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