ChatGPT Security: Tips for Safe Interactions with Generative AI

With over 100 million users and partnerships with Microsoft, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and more,  ChatGPT has become the herald of an AI revolution since its launch in late 2022. 

The rise of this AI-powered natural language processing tool comes down to two distinct features: its conversational nature, which allows anyone to ask questions and receive detailed and helpful responses, and its access to a global knowledge base. 

As organizations race to implement the large language model, they must also consider ChatGPT security risks associated with using the platform. This blog explores ChatGPT’s capabilities, discusses potential security vulnerabilities, and provides practical tips for users looking to secure their data and maintain privacy while using ChatGPT.

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Understanding ChatGPT and its capabilities

ChatGPT (short for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is a chatbot designed by the artificial intelligence (AI) research firm OpenAI. It uses the GPT language model, and OpenAI trains it on a vast quantity of data from around the web to provide coherent and relevant responses in a conversational manner. 

In simple terms, it’s a chatbot. You can type in questions or requests like “Give me ten ideas for a novel about robots,” and ChatGPT will do its thing, poring over its data model to produce a result. Because of the nature of the model and the amount of data ChatGPT uses, it’s not limited to a single topic or subset of tasks. You can ask it questions about how to write a specific subset of code, translate text from one language to another, summarize documents or emails, and even have it engage in creative writing.

While ChatGPT’s ability to answer complex questions is impressive, it’s important to understand its limitations. Despite being deemed an “artificial intelligence,” ChatGPT does not possess knowledge or intelligence on its own. If you ask ChatGPT to describe a cat, ChatGPT doesn’t actually know what a cat is — it’s merely using its algorithmic model to find information about cats and present it to you naturally. 

Also, ChatGPT is not able to create anything original. If you ask it to write a new episode of your favorite TV show, it won’t come up with brand new ideas for plot lines or characters. Instead, it will collect text from the episodes it already has access to and assemble a script that mimics the show’s style based on that data. It’s an impressive feat to be sure, but it’s no replacement for human ingenuity. 

However, these limitations can also pose several cybersecurity risks for organizations that need to keep a lid on proprietary information — more on that in the next section.

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Identifying key ChatGPT security risks

Data leakage and generative AI

The goal of ChatGPT is to provide helpful and accurate responses to your questions or requests. To do so, it requires access to a vast amount of data, which it pulls from sources all over the internet. It might also draw from conversations you have with the platform. 

For general questions, this likely won’t pose any security risks. However, if you’re copying sensitive emails into ChatGPT and asking it to summarize their contents, that data might end up being fed into ChatGPT for data modeling and processing. This can lead to unintentional data leaks, as this proprietary information may be used in future interactions — as it did with Samsung employees who shared confidential data with the platform in 2023. 

Additionally, personal information can end up within ChatGPT’s data model if it’s not adequately anonymized. If you plan to integrate ChatGPT into your workflow, you must take special care that you’re not accidentally exposing sensitive personal or confidential information to the model. Assume ChatGPT will use anything you enter into the program and act accordingly. If you don’t want the public to see it, don’t type it into ChatGPT.

The threat of misinformation and manipulation

Using ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas or find an answer to a tricky programming problem within a few seconds can feel like sorcery. However, ChatGPT's answers aren’t always accurate, and you must vet them if you plan to use them in your work.

Remember, ChatGPT isn’t actually intelligent; it’s a generative language model that uses an algorithm to provide an answer to your question. As such, it’s prone to what’s known as “hallucination,” where it gives responses that look like true information but are factually incorrect. 

If you’re not careful, relying on ChatGPT’s outputs without following up with additional research can land you in serious trouble. At best, it might just be an embarrassing mistake you and your coworkers laugh about later. At worst, it can lead to severe consequences for you and your organization, as it did for a lawyer who used ChatGPT to cite case law that didn’t exist. 

On the flip side, malicious actors can use ChatGPT to generate and spread false information, manipulate public opinion, and gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. PR teams must be extra vigilant and prepare for scenarios where the public may be fed “fake news” intended to discredit your organization. Meanwhile, employees must take extra precautions when reading emails as generative AI tools like ChatGPT have led to a 1,265% rise in phishing attempts. 

Legal liability and compliance concerns

In addition to accidentally exposing your organization’s secrets, implementing consumer-facing ChatGPT-powered chatbots can quickly become a compliance minefield if you’re not careful. Personal identifying information (PII), personal health information (PHI), and financial details all require strict adherence to legal compliance frameworks to keep that information secure and private. If a user enters this or other sensitive information into the chatbot, they may unwittingly expose this information to the model and, eventually, the public.

You must also consider the legal consequences that may result from negligent use of the platform. Because ChatGPT is trained on a wealth of data (and what data it’s trained on isn’t immediately obvious), the potential for plagiarism and copyright infringement is high. Meanwhile, ChatGPT may provide inaccurate information about people or subjects that may portray them in an unfair or even defamatory light. Presenting false information as fact (whether intentionally or accidentally) can negatively impact your standing with the public and potentially lead to costly lawsuits.

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Practical tips for safe interactions with ChatGPT

Educate users on interacting with generative AI

Education is the first step to creating a solid and secure foundation. You should provide regularly updated training on generative AI use and best practices. Tell users to avoid sharing personal information, to use anonymized data whenever possible, and to verify any information ChatGPT generates before using it in a business capacity. Inform them of its limitations and reinforce that it can be a helpful tool in specific circumstances rather than a complete solution for every aspect of their job. Proper education can reduce the risk of accidental data leaks throughout the organization.

Establish data loss prevention (DLP) policies

Data loss prevention policies monitor and control sensitive data throughout your organization. They leverage technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to detect security vulnerabilities and prevent data exposure at endpoints and within the cloud.

They’ll also help you protect confidential and sensitive data from leakage by automating policy compliance when using large language models. Enhance your ChatGPT security stance by implementing DLP best practices like classifying data based on specific compliance requirements, creating access controls to restrict sensitive data to essential user groups, and anonymizing data before it enters the ChatGPT ecosystem.

Implement zero-trust security solutions

Locking down how your employees interact with ChatGPT on the company network is one thing. But what about employees working from home? How can you mitigate the risk of data leakage across all of the devices and access points you might use within a day?

The answer lies in implementing a secure web gateway (SWG) that relies on zero-trust principles. One such SWG is Lookout Secure Internet Access, which protects users against the threat of data leakage through methods like:

• URL filtering to limit or block access to generative AI tools. 
• Content filtering that scans data and prevents uploads if it discovers sensitive information. 
• Role-based access control to keep ChatGPT use limited to a handful of approved users. 
• Customizable policies that allow you to control data use based on your organization’s security requirements.

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The future of AI and cybersecurity

As helpful as generative AI tools can be, they still create a massive opportunity for data leakage and other security risks. That’s not to say AI can’t help boost your overall cybersecurity posture. On the contrary, AI and machine learning tools have long been used to automate policy enforcement and monitor for security risks. These tools will only become more critical as networks and products become more complex and attacks grow more sophisticated.

For example, Lookout uses AI and machine learning to provide industry-leading threat intelligence capabilities. With the industry's most comprehensive mobile dataset, Lookout uses AI and machine learning to analyze telemetry from 220 million devices and 325 million apps and provide accurate, real-time threat detection. 

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Mitigate ChatGPT security risks with Lookout

The widespread adoption of ChatGPT is a new frontier for user productivity and a new battleground against cyber threats. A comprehensive cloud security solution like Lookout — with integrated DLP management and enforcement — can protect your sensitive data from data leakage, intrusion, and other incidents.

Ready to learn more about protecting your organization from ChatGPT security risks? Watch our free webinar for insight from the experts at Lookout, and contact us today to discover how Lookout can keep your organization secure from various threats.

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