Yahoo Finance Criminals will use ChatGPT to unleash wave of fraud, warn cyber experts
Criminals will harness ChatGPT to unleash a new wave of online fraud, Britain's biggest listed cybersecurity company has warned.
Gangs are already using chatbot technology to make scam emails more complex and less likely to be spotted by victims, according to Darktrace, with experts noticing that spam messages now contain longer sentences and make better use of punctuation.
The company said: “This indicates that cyber-criminals may be redirecting their focus to crafting more sophisticated social engineering scams that exploit user trust.”
It comes after months of concern in the security industry that chatbots can make it easier for low-skilled fraudsters to craft phishing messages or even write computer viruses. ChatGPT, developed by Microsoft-backed start-up OpenAI, scans the internet for answers to users' questions and responds with human-like speech.
Fears about more sophisticated fraud sent Darktrace sales up 36pc to $259.3m (£219.3m) over the second half of 2022, despite a hedge fund accusing the business of accounting fraud in February. Darktrace has denied wrongdoing.
Net profits were down 86pc to just over $600,000, however, which Darktrace said was because it had covered a tax bill relating to share options claimed by chief executive Poppy Gustafsson and chief financial officer Cathy Graham.
Customer growth also slowed dramatically, reducing from 13.4pc in the last three months of 2022 to 3.9pc over the first 12 weeks of this year.
In February the company's shares were attacked by New York based Quintessential Capital Management, which opened a 1.3pc short position before publishing a report accusing Darktrace bosses of accounting fraud.
Accountants from EY have been brought in separately from Darktrace's regular auditors Grant Thornton to verify its financial statements.
Cathy Graham, Darktrace's chief financial officer, said: "We're not afraid of transparency. So we are allowing EY to do their job, we are not restricting them as to what they can look at or test. And we will allow them to do that until they believe they can come to a conclusion."
She did not comment on EY’s findings to date.
Gross profits dropped by $6.3m over the last six months to $600,000 as a result of bonus shares handed to Ms Gustafsson and Ms Graham in the last six months.
Ms Graham explained that Darktrace's board opted to pay the tax on these gains so the pair did not have to sell any of their stock.
Most companies require employees to sell shares and then reimburse the business for the resulting tax liability.
Darktrace told the market on Wednesday morning that its reduction in operating profit and cashflow was "due to elevated share-based payment and associated employer tax charges related to vesting of a significant block of grants made at IPO".
