Underground Market for LLMs Powers Malware and Phishing Scams
Description
A study by Indiana University researchers uncovered widespread misuse of large language models (LLMs) for cybercrime. Cybercriminals, according to that study, use LLMs like OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to create malware, phishing scams, and scam websites. These models are available on underground markets, often bypassing safety checks through jailbreaking. Named malicious LLMs are BadGPT, XXXGPT, Evil-GPT, WormGPT, FraudGPT, BLACKHATGPT, EscapeGPT, DarkGPT, and WolfGPT.
Actors
Alleged Deployers
- cybercriminals
- badgpt
- xxxgpt
- evil-gpt
- wormgpt
- fraudgpt
- blackhatgpt
- escapegpt
- darkgpt
- wolfgpt
Alleged Developers
- openai
Harmed Parties
- internet-users
- organizations
- individuals-targeted-by-malware
Classification
Risk Domain
Malicious Actors & MisuseRisk Subdomain
4.2. Cyberattacks, weapon development or use, and mass harm
MIT Risk Profile
Source
Related Incidents (Malicious Actors & Misuse)
View all →Female Students at Westfield High School in New Jersey Reportedly Targeted with Deepfake Nudes
Oct 2023
ChatGPT Was Alleged to Have Aided Planning of Florida State University Mass Shooting
Apr 2025
Ongoing Purported AI-Assisted Identity Fraud Enables Unauthorized Access to Western Companies by North Korean IT Workers
Research Papers on This Topic
How Johnny Can Persuade LLMs to Jailbreak Them: Rethinking Persuasion to Challenge AI Safety by Humanizing LLMs
AgentHarm: A Benchmark for Measuring Harmfulness of LLM Agents
Regulating ChatGPT and other Large Generative AI Models
Great, Now Write an Article About That: The Crescendo Multi-Turn LLM Jailbreak Attack