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Kobra Khanmohammadi

Publications and source records attributed to Kobra Khanmohammadi.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

WildCode Revisited: A Comprehensive Empirical Study on the Security of LLM-Generated Code

LLM models are increasingly used to generate code, but the quality and security of this code are often uncertain. Several recent studies have raised alarm bells, indicating that such AI-generated code may be particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks. However, most of these studies rely on code that is generated specifically for the study, which raises questions about the realism of such experiments. In this study, we perform a large-scale empirical analysis of real-life code generated by ChatGPT. We evaluate code generated by ChatGPT both with respect to correctness and security and delve into the intentions of users who request code from the model. We further performed an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of common prompt engineering strategies using real-life prompts. Our study supports earlier research that employed synthetic queries and produced proof that LLM-generated code is frequently insufficient in terms of security. Additionally, we observe that users don't ask many questions about the security characteristics of the code they ask LLMs to provide.

cs.CR↗

DarkGram: A Large-Scale Analysis of Cybercriminal Activity Channels on Telegram

We present the first large-scale analysis of 339 cybercriminal activity channels (CACs). Followed by over 23.8 million users, these channels share a wide array of malicious and unethical content with their subscribers, including compromised credentials, pirated software and media, social media manipulation tools, and blackhat hacking resources such as malware, exploit kits, and social engineering scams. To evaluate these channels, we developed DarkGram, a BERT-based framework that automatically identifies malicious posts from the CACs with an accuracy of 96%. Using DarkGram, we conducted a quantitative analysis of 53,605 posts shared on these channels between February and May 2024, revealing key characteristics of the content. While much of this content is distributed for free, channel administrators frequently employ strategies such as promotions and giveaways to engage users and boost the sales of premium cybercriminal content. Interestingly, these channels sometimes pose significant risks to their own subscribers. Notably, 28.1% of the links shared in these channels contained phishing attacks, and 38% of executable files were bundled with malware. Analyzing how subscribers consume and positively react to the shared content paints a dangerous picture of the perpetuation of cybercriminal content at scale. We also found that the CACs can evade scrutiny or platform takedowns by quickly migrating to new channels with minimal subscriber loss, highlighting the resilience of this ecosystem. To counteract this, we utilized DarkGram to detect emerging channels and reported malicious content to Telegram and affected organizations. This resulted in the takedown of 196 channels over three months. Our findings underscore the urgent need for coordinated efforts to combat the growing threats posed by these channels. To aid this effort, we open-source our dataset and the DarkGram framework.

cs.CR↗

Half-Day Vulnerabilities: A study of the First Days of CVE Entries

The National Vulnerability Disclosure Database is an invaluable source of information for security professionals and researchers. However, in some cases, a vulnerability report is initially published with incomplete information, a situation that complicates incident response and mitigation. In this paper, we perform an empirical study of vulnerabilities that are initially submitted with an incomplete report, and present key findings related to their frequency, nature, and the time needed to update them. We further present a novel ticketing process that is tailored to addressing the problems related to such vulnerabilities and demonstrate the use of this system with a real-life use case.

cs.CR↗