Almost three-quarters (72%) of white hat hackers don’t consider that generative AI can change human creativity in safety analysis and vulnerability administration, in keeping with Bugcrowd’s Inside the Mind of a Hacker – 2023 report.
However, the hackers surveyed acknowledged the significance of generative AI instruments like ChatGPT of their work, with 21% stating that AI is already outperforming them. Moreover, 55% consider that these applied sciences have elevated the worth of moral hacking and safety analysis or will enhance its worth sooner or later.
Over three-quarters (78%) consider that AI will disrupt the way in which hackers work on penetration testing or bug bounty packages within the subsequent 5 years.
Lots of the respondents are already utilizing generative AI of their work, together with in automating duties (50%), analyzing information (48%), figuring out vulnerabilities (36%), validating findings (35%) and conducting reconnaissance (35%). The report famous a development of hackers utilizing AI chatbots to assist write reviews, with the preliminary textual content generated by AI “a very good leaping off level.”
The highest three AI chatbots utilized by respondents had been ChatGPT (98%), Google Bard (40%) and Bing Chat AI (40%).
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Demographic Make-Up
The report, which surveyed 1000 respondents from 85 international locations, additionally supplied insights into the demographic make-up of the moral hacking neighborhood. The overwhelming majority (90%) had been younger, with 57% Gen Z aged 18-24 and 28% Millennials aged 25-34, alongside 5% below the age of 18. Simply 2% of these surveyed had been over the age of 45.
Hackers are overwhelmingly male, at 96%, in keeping with the report. This represents a lower in feminine hackers from 6% to 4% since Bugcrowd’s Inside the Mind of a Hacker report in 2020.
Over two-thirds (68%) of respondents had been educated to school or graduate degree.
The survey discovered a major drop off in hackers partaking on this work full time, from 42% in 2022 to 29% in 2023. Nonetheless, 33% are presently part-time however aiming to work full-time in hacking. The remaining both hacked part-time (25%) or as a facet hustle (14%). The report highlighted the rising price of dwelling and an rising want for versatile work as potential explanations for this development.
Nonetheless, 75% recognized non-financial elements as their primary motivators to hack.
Growing Vulnerabilities
Most (84%) consider there are extra vulnerabilities now than in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 88% arguing that point-in-time safety is just not sufficient to maintain corporations safe.
Moreover, 63% of respondents reported discovering a brand new vulnerability up to now 12 months that that they had not encountered earlier than.
Organizations look like recognizing the worth of moral hacking on this panorama, with 89% stating that they’re being seen in a extra favorable mild. Nearly all (96%) stated they assist corporations fill their cybersecurity abilities gaps.
