Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Great, hackers are now using ChatGPT to create malware

Fionna Agomuoh
By

A new threat has surfaced in the ChatGPT saga, with cybercriminals having developed a way to hack the AI chatbot and inundate it with malware commands.

The research firm Checkpoint has discovered that hackers have designed bots that can infiltrate OpenAI’s GPT-3 API and alter its code so that it can generate malicious content, such as text that can be used for phishing emails and malware scripts.

Related Videos
Counterpoint screencap of Business model of OpenAI API based Telegram channel.

The bots work through the messaging app Telegram. Bad actors use the bots to set up a restriction-free, dark version of ChatGPT, according to Ars Technica.

ChatGPT has thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons that you can press as part of its learning algorithm if it generates content that can be considered offensive or inappropriate. Normally, inputs like generating malicious code or phishing emails is off limits, with ChatGPT refusing to give a response.

This nefarious chatbot alternative has a price tag of $6 for every 100 queries, with the hackers behind it also giving tips and examples of the bad content you can generate with this version. The hackers have also made a script available on GitHub. The OpenAI, API-based script has the ability to allow users to fake a business or person, in addition to generating phishing emails through text-generation commands. The bots can also assist you in the ideal placement for the phishing link in the email, according to PC Gamer.

It is difficult to know how much of a threat this development will be to AI text generators moving forward, especially with major companies already committed to working with this increasingly popular technology. Microsoft Bing is set to soon add ChatGPT support to its browser in an upcoming update as a part of its ongoing collaboration with OpenAI, for example.

While ChatGPT remains free for the foreseeable future, minus the priority ChatGPT Plus subscription, this isn’t the first time the AI text generator has been targeted by scammers. In January, news broke that thousands of people were duped after paying for iOS and Android mobile app versions of the chatbot, which is currently a browser-based service.

The Apple App Store version was especially popular, despite its $8 weekly subscription price after a three-day trial. Users also had the option to pay a $50 monthly subscription, which notably was even more expensive than the weekly cost. The app was eventually removed from the Apple store after it received media attention.

ChatGPT is certainly the main target for scammers as it has surged in popularity, but it remains to be seen if bad actors will eventually jump on one of the many ChatGPT alternatives circulating.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
ChatGPT was down nearly all day, chat history still in progress
Close up of ChatGPT and OpenAI logo.

ChatGPT had been down for most of the day, creating an unsettling moment for the large number of people that have come to rely on the advanced AI for help with writing and coding, as well as assistance on a variety of topics.

The outage included for paid subscribers of ChatGPT Plus, which was supposed to provide priority status during peak times.

Read more
Check your inbox — Google may have invited you to use Bard, its ChatGPT rival
ChatGPT versus Google on smartphones.

AI chatbots have been the subject of much public fascination as of late, with the likes of ChatGPT continuously making headlines. But now, Google is finally getting in on the trend by soft-launching Bard for select Pixel users.

Bard is Google's AI chatbot that was previously unavailable to the public, but according to a report from 9to5Google, the company is inviting some of its most loyal and dedicated customers to give it a try.

Read more
Here’s the ChatGPT word limit and how to get around it
A laptop opened to the ChatGPT website.

Fans of ChatGPT adore the AI chatbot for several purposes, including its ability to generate detailed essays in a matter of seconds. However, one of its little-known limitations is that there is a word and character limit set on how much content it can output per query.
Reddit members and other AI enthusiasts have been discussing this for months, and luckily there are easy workarounds for this limitation by way of the prompts you can use.

What is the ChatGPT word limit?
ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI. set the word and character limit as part of its ongoing development of the AI chatbot, which is still in its research preview phase. Some of the issues with ChatGPT include its affinity toward "social biases, hallucinations, and adversarial prompts," in addition to producing inaccurate content when the AI algorithm is overwhelmed or at a loss for information to process.
Similarly, ChatGPT might simply stop producing content when the request is too complex for the AI to handle. This happens at about 500 words or 4,000 characters. If you happen to give the chatbot a request for a specific number of words above 500, you might find that it cuts off midsentence somewhere after 500 words.

Read more