AI Slop Invades Cybersecurity!

The Internet is drowning in "AI slop"—a term denoting low-quality, LLM-generated images, videos, and text that's spreading like wildfire across platforms, newspapers, and even real-world events. But now, the cybersecurity sector is facing a troubling wave of this phenomenon as well.

False Reports Flood Bug Bounty Programs

In recent months, cybersecurity experts have raised alarms about AI slop infiltrating bug bounty reports—documents claiming to unveil vulnerabilities that simply don’t exist. A mix of fabricated technical details crafted by AI models leads researchers down a rabbit hole of false hope.

Vlad Ionescu, co-founder and CTO of RunSybil, shared his frustrations with TechCrunch: "These reports look credible at first glance, but upon closer inspection, they unravel into nothing more than sophisticated hallucinations." This is a pressing issue, as novice hunters often fall prey to misleading AI-generated reports, flooding bug bounty platforms and frustrating genuine researchers.

The Ugly Truth of AI-Generated Submissions

Real-world examples illustrate the severity of the issue. Security researcher Harry Sintonen discovered that the open-source security initiative Curl received a bogus report, showcasing how even experienced teams can be led astray by AI's ability to produce what looks like legitimate documentation.

Benjamin Piouffle from Open Collective echoed similar sentiments, lamenting a flood of "AI garbage" in their inbox, while developers like those maintaining the CycloneDX project have even pulled their bug bounty programs due to an overwhelming volume of low-quality reports.

The Bug Bounty Platforms Join the Fray

Major bug bounty platforms are not immune to this surge. Michiel Prins of HackerOne revealed a notable rise in false positives—vulnerabilities that sound real but lack any real-world implications, merely concocted by AI. "Low-quality submissions only create noise, undermining the efficiency of our security programs," he stated.

Meanwhile, Casey Ellis from Bugcrowd confirmed that while AI is automatically assisting in submissions, an internal review process has kept the tide of low-quality reports manageable—at least for now.

Are Major Tech Companies Affected?

TechCrunch reached out to major companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta for their experiences with AI-generated bug reports. Mozilla indicated it hasn’t seen a significant uptick in invalid submissions, maintaining a rejection rate of under 10%.

Contrastingly, both Microsoft and Meta opted not to provide any insights, while Google remained silent on the matter.

A Ray of Hope in the AI Trenches

Ionescu suggests that enhancing AI-driven systems can help address the surging tide of AI slop by pre-screening submissions for authenticity. In a promising move, HackerOne recently launched Hai Triage—an innovative system combining human analysts with AI to sift through noise, pinpoint duplicates, and highlight genuine threats.

As the clash between hacking AIs and verification AIs heats up, will cybersecurity protocols adapt, or will they be buried under a deluge of artificial detritus? The stakes have never been higher!