ThreatQuotient’s Perspective on Security Operations and vision for AI in the ThreatQ Platform We’re all familiar with the “speed of cybersecurity”, the rapid pace at which cyber threats evolve and the corresponding need for timely and agile defense measures. We’ve been trained to understand the importance of quickly detecting, analyzing, and mitigating cyber risks to stay ahead of attackers and protect assets in an increasingly dynamic and interconnected world.

Spending for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications is projected to grow 17.9% to $197 billion in 2023, then grow another 17.7% to $232 billion in 2024. This rapid growth is being fueled by several factors including the desire to modernize IT environments and enable hybrid workers, who might login from a branch office one day and a hotel room the next.

It is fair to say that few technologies have grabbed more news headlines in 2023 than ChatGPT. As an artificial intelligence (AI) language model, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionize multiple business areas, including, but not limited to, marketing, operations, engineering, risk management, legal and employee optimization.

Generative AI capabilities continue to make their way into every organization, with increasingly useful ways of helping employees and contractors be more productive. This includes advancing how fully automated vulnerability remediation works, and with the power of generative AI, is able to take into account unique environments and uses in real-time.

Despite the security controls that OpenAI has imposed on ChatGPT to try to make it a secure space capable of assisting users in a variety of tasks, cybercriminals have managed to exploit this technology for malicious purposes. Recent research has shown that this generative artificial intelligence is capable of creating a new branch of polymorphic malware with relative ease. The main risk lies in ChatGPT's versatility, which allows it to create code that could easily be used for malware.

ChatGPT use is increasing exponentially among enterprise users, who are using it to help with the writing process, to explore new topics, and to write code. But, users need to be careful about what information they submit to ChatGPT, because ChatGPT does not guarantee data security or confidentiality. Users should avoid submitting any sensitive information, including proprietary source code, passwords and keys, intellectual property, or regulated data.