GPT-4 able to hack websites without human help

Large language models (LLMs), including OpenAI's GPT-4, are capable of compromising vulnerable websites without human guidance, according to researchers.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) researchers showed that LLM-powered agents - LLMs provisioned with tools for accessing APIs, automated web browsing, and feedback-based planning - can conduct SQL injection and other malicious attacks on third-party websites without oversight. The test was conducted in a secure sandbox.

GPT-4 proved particularly effective at these tasks, with a success rate of 73.3 percent. OpenAI's GPT-3.5 proved the second most effective model. The researchers were unclear why GPT-4 proved particularly able to conduct malicious security attacks, though one explanation put forward by the researchers was that GPT-4 was better able to change its actions based on the response it got from the target website.