In a strategic move to counter the rising tide of AI-driven cyberattacks, Chinese enterprises are turning to advanced generative AI technologies as their new line of defense.
Leading the charge is Qi-Anxin Group, a prominent player in the cybersecurity arena. In March, the company unveiled its large-scale model, QAX-GPT, designed to bolster security products, identify vulnerabilities, and analyze internet-related crimes.
\"QAX-GPT boasts investigation and judgment abilities akin to those of an intermediate-level security expert,\" explained Qi Xiangdong, chairman of Qi-Anxin. \"Its efficiency in handling alarms and making judgments is over 60 times greater than manual efforts.\"
The surge in AI adoption for cybersecurity follows the global popularity of tools like ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. Since late 2022, tech giants and startups worldwide have been racing to develop similar AI chatbots and industrial applications based on large language models.
Experts caution that while generative AI tools lower the barrier to entry for threat actors, enabling the creation of malware and other cyberattack tools, these same technologies are being weaponized to defend against such threats.
A survey by Qi-Anxin highlighted that the biggest vulnerability in network security is the lack of personnel and resources, leading to neglected or mishandled alarms. \"To avoid affecting operations, 99 percent of alarms suggesting cybersecurity threats require expert analysis. However, the number of experts in any company is limited compared to the tremendous number of alarm instances. The comprehensive analysis system empowered by AI will therefore greatly boost security defense,\" Qi stated.
Zhang Zhuo, vice president of Qi-Anxin, added, \"Compared with a human expert, QAX-GPT learns much faster, gaining its expertise from a vast corpus of analysis, reports, and articles related to cybersecurity. Challenges like scarcity of experts, human alarm fatigue, and efficiency bottlenecks can be addressed by our large-scale model, which transforms expert experience into scalable solutions.\"
China remains a major target in the global cybersecurity landscape, with over 42 million malware attacks detected in 2020 alone, according to the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
