The Hugging Face incident is a great example of why open source models with defensive cyber capabilities are needed. Hugging Face did not have access to cyber-capable frontier models and kept hitting safeguards. Only by using the open source GLM-5.2 were they able to survive an attack. A world where open source models are banned is one where cybersecurity is impossible if you're not on OpenAI or Anthropic's allowlist.

▲

ajyoon 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Hugging Face survived the attack because the OpenAI model only cared about accessing the ExploitGym dataset; by all appearances, HF was completely owned. GLM-5.2 was only used to assess the damage after the fact. Cybersecurity has a attacker-defender asymmetry that heavily favors attackers. If GPT-5.6 were open sourced today, do you think every hospital in the world would be able to use it to shore up their defenses before attackers got to them?

▲

tekacs 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is completely backwards. Cybersecurity has an attacker-defender asymmetry that heavily, HEAVILY favors defenders.

For starters, a defender gets to pick the surface area, an attacker has to work with what they're given.

▲

dwaltrip 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The saying that stuck with me was "defenders have to be right 100% of the time, while attackers only have to be right once".

You are suggesting this isn't correct?

> a defender gets to pick the surface area

What do you mean? You don't pick what you need to defend. Unless you choose not to build a feature. But that's a product design choice... Not a cybersecurity strategy.

▲

sudosysgen 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> "defenders have to be right 100% of the time, while attackers only have to be right once"

If you have an adaptive system that can react to attacks flexible (say, your own AI agent), then no, that's not correct. It is correct in the classical conception of cybersecurity where the defender is basically static.

▲

pastel8739 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Doesn’t this “adaptive system” just become part of the static defense? The same way that a bit of code that checks passwords against a db is “dynamic”, the options are either to beat the dynamic system (guess/phish a password, trick the AI) or find a way around it (use “forgot your password”, find a place that isn’t covered by the endpoint protection feeding the AI). I don’t see how inserting an agent somewhere fundamentally changes anything

	▲	sudosysgen 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It changes how many attempts you get until the attack surfaces changes to react to a failed attack, and it does so in a way that is not predictable to the attacker.

▲

paxys 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This makes no sense. Why do defenders get to pick the surface area? You can be attacked from anywhere.

▲

shepherdjerred 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think the point you're trying to make is that you can always make your exposed surface area smaller

But that, of course, is not going to survive contact with reality

▲

artrockalter 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I know the company I consult for (not cybersecurity) is not in these programs and if attacked would need to use open weight models.

▲

ajyoon 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Did the company apply for access? This is either a problem with your company or the trusted access program. In no way does that suggest the solution is total unfettered access for everyone.

	▲	verdverm 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Everyone needs access to Ai enabled security for defense. A "trusted access program" creates exclusiveness in the hands of Big Ai duopoly. I do not trust them at all

▲

paxys 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Only by using the open source GLM-5.2 were they able to survive an attack

They did not "survive" anything. The attack was long done, and they used GLM after the fact to parse logs. Having a more powerful model would have changed nothing.

If every attacker and every defender has AI with the same capabilities then attackers are going to win 10 times out of 10.

▲

varenc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're ignoring the asymmetry with security. The attacker just needs one exploit chain, whereas the defender needs to block every avenue. Open access to models with no guardrails greatly benefits the attackers more than the defenders.

Imagine what a god-level hacking AI could do. It could find a full 0-click to root exploit chain in iOS. Attacker unleashes a worm that infects a phone, instructs that phone to send the same attack to all of its contacts, and then physically destroy the phone by turning off all thermal throttling. Might even be possible to make it catch fire.

Or find a remote exploit in Tesla cars and make their autopilot go on murdering rampages. (that one is from a movie)

▲

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

alienbaby 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

? There were not models fighting each other, attacker and defender. I dont quite follow what your getting at.

▲

akersten 4 hours ago | parent [-]

huggingface asked the frontier models to help them analyze the attack and lock down their systems

the frontier models refused because their cyber detector went off

they had to use GLM 5.2 instead

▲

paxys 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They used GLM to parse logs after the incident. There was no sci-fi AI vs AI battle.

▲

usef- 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, to parse logs afterwards and understand, it wasn't active defence from what I've heard? Definitely embarrassing for the closed vendors though (they've since added hugging face as a trusted vendor)

	▲	marcus_holmes 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		One of their learnings from the incident was that they should have a local (i.e. not hosted), open, and capable model on standby that can respond to future incidents swiftly.