Meta warns of rise in ChatGPT-related malware

Social media giant Meta shared a new report on Wednesday warning of the increase in ChatGPT-related malware. The company announced that it found cyber attackers trying to take advantage of the public interest in ChatGPT to lure users into installing harmful apps and browser extensions.

‘’This year alone, we’ve detected and disrupted nearly ten new malware strains, including those posing as ChatGPT browser extensions and productivity tools,’’ said Meta’s Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher and Malware Discovery and Detection Engineer Ryan Victory, in the report.

‘’As part of our most recent work to protect people and businesses from malicious targeting using ChatGPT as a lure, since March 2023 we’ve blocked and shared with our industry peers more than 1,000 malicious links from being shared across our technologies and reported a number of browser extensions and mobile apps to our peer companies,’’ they said.

During a press briefing on the report, Guy Rosen, Meta’s Chief Information Security Officer, added that ‘’ChatGPT is the new crypto’’ in the eyes of bad actors.

In the company’s announcement post, the duo also talked about Meta’s plans and most-recent product updates to help protect users from malicious activity. 

They announced that Meta will now offer a new malware removal support that will guide users through how to detect and remove malware, offer the ability to verify connected Business Manager accounts to increase security, and expand ‘’authorization requirements for sensitive business account actions like accessing a credit line or changing business administrators’’.

They also said that the company will begin rolling out the new ‘’Meta Work’’ accounts later this year, which will enable users to log in and use Business Manager without the need for a personal account.

‘’This will help keep business accounts more secure in cases when attackers begin with a personal account compromise,’’ they added. ‘’We plan to test work accounts with a limited set of advertisers this year and aim to expand availability over time.’’

Earlier this year, Meta merged all of its teams working on artificial intelligence, just two days after releasing its AI large language model ‘’LLaMA’’.