The tool is used for Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, where the attacker impersonates a business entity like a vendor to trick individuals in the organisation into transferring funds and sharing information.

Cybercriminals are now creating tools like WormGPT, which is a blackhat version of ChatGPT available for purchase on the black market.

WormGPT is trained on malware-related data and has unlimited character support, chat memory retention, and code formatting capabilities.

It allows inexperienced cybercriminals to carry out sophisticated phishing and BEC attacks by formatting messages that reduce its likelihood of being flagged as suspicious.

It also lowers the entry threshold for committing phishing scams, opening up the option to a broader range of threat actors.

When SlashNext tested WormGPT, they said: The results were unsettling. WormGPT produced an email that was not only remarkably persuasive but also strategically cunning, showcasing its potential for sophisticated phishing and BEC attacks.”

Acronis’ Mid-Year Cyber Threats Report found that email attacks have surged 464% compared to the first half of 2022, much of it due to the proliferation of AI technologies in that time. Attackers leverage AI to translate and refine messages to sound more legitimate in phishing attempts.

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According to SlashNext, threat actors are also jailbreaking AI interfaces like ChatGPT to make the model generate inappropriate content, disclose sensitive information, and execute harmful code. “The proliferation of such practices underscores the challenges of maintaining AI security against determined cybercriminals,” said ShlashNet about the trend.

According to the Acronis report, up to 30% of all emails received were spam, and 1.3% contain malware or phishing links. This has led to over 85,171 fraud and cyber crimes reported in the UK, resulting in over £527 million in losses.