The Sysdig Threat Research Team (Sysdig TRT) recently discovered a new Freejacking campaign abusing Google’s Vertex AI platform for cryptomining. Vertex AI is a SaaS, which makes it vulnerable to a number of attacks, such as Freejacking and account takeovers. Freejacking is the act of abusing free services, such as free trials, for financial gain. This freejacking campaign leverages free Coursera courses that provide the attacker with no-cost access to GCP and Vertex AI.

Today, cybersecurity companies are in a never-ending race against cyber criminals, each seeking innovative new tactics to outpace the other. The newfound accessibility of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) has revolutionized how people work, but it's also made threat actors more efficient. Attackers can now quickly create phishing messages or automate vulnerability discoveries.

At Black Hat USA 2023, a session led by a team of security researchers, including Fredrik Heiding, Bruce Schneier, Arun Vishwanath, and Jeremy Bernstein, unveiled an intriguing experiment. They tested large language models (LLMs) to see how they performed in both writing convincing phishing emails and detecting them. This is the PDF technical paper.

In today's world, cybercriminals are learning to harness the power of AI. Cybersecurity professionals must be prepared for the current threats of zero days, insider threats, and supply chain, but now add in Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically Generative AI. AI can revolutionize industries, but cybersecurity leaders and practitioners should be mindful of its capabilities and ensure it is used effectively.

As technology continues to evolve, there is a growing concern about the potential for large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, to be used for criminal purposes. In this blog we will discuss two such LLM engines that were made available recently on underground forums, WormGPT and FraudGPT. If criminals were to possess their own ChatGPT-like tool, the implications for cybersecurity, social engineering, and overall digital safety could be significant.