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The Pros and Cons of Large Language Models

 


In recent years, the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs), commonly referred to as Smart Computers, has ushered in a technological revolution with profound implications for various industries. As these models promise to redefine human-computer interactions, it's crucial to explore both their remarkable impacts and the challenges that come with them.

Smart Computers, or LLMs, have become instrumental in expediting software development processes. Their standout capability lies in the swift and efficient generation of source code, enabling developers to bring their ideas to fruition with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Furthermore, these models play a pivotal role in advancing artificial intelligence applications, fostering the development of more intelligent and user-friendly AI-driven systems. Their ability to understand and process natural language has democratized AI, making it accessible to individuals and organizations without extensive technical expertise. With their integration into daily operations, Smart Computers generate vast amounts of data from nuanced user interactions, paving the way for data-driven insights and decision-making across various domains.

Managing Risks and Ensuring Responsible Usage

However, the benefits of Smart Computers are accompanied by inherent risks that necessitate careful management. Privacy concerns loom large, especially regarding the accidental exposure of sensitive information. For instance, models like ChatGPT learn from user interactions, raising the possibility of unintentional disclosure of confidential details. Organisations relying on external model providers, such as Samsung, have responded to these concerns by implementing usage limitations to protect sensitive business information. Privacy and data exposure concerns are further accentuated by default practices, like ChatGPT saving chat history for model training, prompting the need for organizations to thoroughly inquire about data usage, storage, and training processes to safeguard against data leaks.

Addressing Security Challenges

Security concerns encompass malicious usage, where cybercriminals exploit Smart Computers for harmful purposes, potentially evading security measures. The compromise or contamination of training data introduces the risk of biased or manipulated model outputs, posing significant threats to the integrity of AI-generated content. Additionally, the resource-intensive nature of Smart Computers makes them prime targets for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Organisations must implement proper input validation strategies, selectively restricting characters and words to mitigate potential attacks. API rate controls are essential to prevent overload and potential denial of service, promoting responsible usage by limiting the number of API calls for free memberships.

A Balanced Approach for a Secure Future

To navigate these challenges and anticipate future risks, organisations must adopt a multifaceted approach. Implementing advanced threat detection systems and conducting regular vulnerability assessments of the entire technology stack are essential. Furthermore, active community engagement in industry forums facilitates staying informed about emerging threats and sharing valuable insights with peers, fostering a collaborative approach to security.

All in all, while Smart Computers bring unprecedented opportunities, the careful consideration of risks and the adoption of robust security measures are essential for ensuring a responsible and secure future in the era of these groundbreaking technologies.





Several Critical Flaws Discovered in Telecoms Stack Software FreeSwitch

 

Enable Security researchers have released details regarding a set of five vulnerabilities in telecoms stack software FreeSwitch. 

The vulnerabilities in FreeSwitch lead to denial of service, authentication problems,   and information leakage for systems running FreeSwitch quintet of flaws, as told by the researchers from German telecoms security consultancy Enable Security. FreeSwitch is an open-source communication platform enabling the digital transformation from proprietary telecom switches to a versatile software execution that operates on any commodity hardware.

All five vulnerabilities were patched with FreeSwitch 1.10.7, released on October 25. According to security experts, this particular denial of service needs no authentication to trigger. Companies running the affected software should patch their systems or risk being compromised. 

The critical vulnerability flaw (CVE-2021-41145, CVSS score 8.6) leaves FreeSwitch in danger of denial of service via SIP flooding. If an attacker targets a switch with sufficient malicious SIP messages, then it can exhaust the memory of a device. 

Subsequently, a moderate severity flaw (CVE-2021-41158) allows cybercriminals to carry out a SIP digest leak attack against FreeSwitch and receive the challenge-response of a gateway configured on the FreeSwitch server. This leaked data might be used to determine a gateway password. 

Finally, a failure of previous versions of FreeSwitch to authenticate SIP ‘SUBSCRIBE’ requests, which are used to subscribe to user agent event notifications, created a moderate privacy risk.

"Each vulnerability has a different impact. The worst one is the DoS due to the SIP flood since in RTC downtime is a huge deal. [It's] hard for me to say how many are affected. There will be more with a custom User-Agent header. And various systems will be internal / not responding to Shodan / hiding behind an SIP router / SBC etc.,” stated Sandro Gauci, the researcher who led the team at Enable Security which carried out the research. 

"We've been advocating for more security research/testing in the area because many security professionals seem to ignore the topic. FreeSwitch developers were very receptive and we were happy to work with them on these issues" Gauci concluded with a hope that Enable's work might inspire other researchers to look into the security.