A Survey of Large Language Models in Cybersecurity
Not on the map. Why?
Abstract (arXiv)
Large Language Models (LLMs) have quickly risen to prominence due to their ability to perform at or close to the state-of-the-art in a variety of fields while handling natural language. An important field of research is the application of such models at the cybersecurity context. This survey aims to identify where in the field of cybersecurity LLMs have already been applied, the ways in which they are being used and their limitations in the field. Finally, suggestions are made on how to improve such limitations and what can be expected from these systems once these limitations are overcome.
Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 45 of its 85 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Feb 2024.
Builds on
45 of 85 references.
References · 45
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
- 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
- 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
- 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,160
- 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,053
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,072
- 2022Survey of Hallucination in Natural Language Generationcited by 2,056
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
33 more
- 2020CodeBERT: A Pre-Trained Model for Programming and Natural Languagescited by 1,286
- 2020On Faithfulness and Factuality in Abstractive Summarizationcited by 895
- 2023Large Language Models Can Be Easily Distracted by Irrelevant Contextcited by 820
- 2023LLaMA-Adapter: Efficient Fine-tuning of Language Models with Zero-init Attentioncited by 776
- 2023An Empirical Study of Catastrophic Forgetting in Large Language Models During Continual Fine-tuningcited by 622
- 2022Mixture-of-Experts with Expert Choice Routingcited by 611
- 2023Fine-Tuning Language Models with Just Forward Passescited by 337
- 2020Generation-Augmented Retrieval for Open-domain Question Answeringcited by 186
- 2022On the Origin of Hallucinations in Conversational Models: Is it the Datasets or the Models?cited by 137
- 2023Full Parameter Fine-tuning for Large Language Models with Limited Resourcescited by 134
- 2023Self-contradictory Hallucinations of Large Language Models: Evaluation, Detection and Mitigationcited by 123
- 2023Investigating the Catastrophic Forgetting in Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 119
- 2021Examining Zero-Shot Vulnerability Repair with Large Language Modelscited by 105
- 2023PentestGPT: An LLM-empowered Automatic Penetration Testing Toolcited by 94
- 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Code Summarization via Hybrid GNNcited by 89
- 2023Getting pwn'd by AI: Penetration Testing with Large Language Modelscited by 82
- 2015A Primer on Neural Network Models for Natural Language Processingcited by 75
- 2023Prompting Is All You Need: Automated Android Bug Replay with Large Language Modelscited by 40
- 2022Transformer-Based Language Models for Software Vulnerability Detectioncited by 39
- 2022Privately Fine-Tuning Large Language Models with Differential Privacycited by 39
- 2018Automated software vulnerability detection with machine learningcited by 34
- 2019Autonomous Penetration Testing using Reinforcement Learningcited by 33
- 2023From Text to MITRE Techniques: Exploring the Malicious Use of Large Language Models for Generating Cyber Attack Payloadscited by 31
- 2017PassGAN: A Deep Learning Approach for Password Guessingcited by 25
- 2023Using Large Language Models for Cybersecurity Capture-The-Flag Challenges and Certification Questionscited by 23
- 2023RatGPT: Turning online LLMs into Proxies for Malware Attackscited by 17
- 2023Out of the Cage: How Stochastic Parrots Win in Cyber Security Environmentscited by 17
- 2023Devising and Detecting Phishing: Large Language Models vs. Smaller Human Modelscited by 17
- 2023ChatIDS: Advancing Explainable Cybersecurity Using Generative AIcited by 12
- 2023An Empirical Study on Using Large Language Models to Analyze Software Supply Chain Security Failurescited by 11
- 2023On the Uses of Large Language Models to Interpret Ambiguous Cyberattack Descriptionscited by 10
- 2023Detecting Phishing Sites Using ChatGPTcited by 9
- 2022Enabling Automatic Repair of Source Code Vulnerabilities Using Data-Driven Methodscited by 1
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 4; 2026: 2.
8 papers.
- 2024When LLMs Meet Cybersecurity: A Systematic Literature Reviewcited by 70
- 2024ChatNVD: Advancing Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessment with Large Language Modelscited by 11
- 2025L2M-AID: Autonomous Cyber-Physical Defense by Fusing Semantic Reasoning of Large Language Models with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (Preprint)cited by 2
- 2025From Flows to Words: Can Zero-/Few-Shot LLMs Detect Network Intrusions? A Grammar-Constrained, Calibrated Evaluation on UNSW-NB15cited by 1
- 2025From Capabilities to Performance: Evaluating Key Functional Properties of LLM Architectures in Penetration Testingcited by 0
- 2025The Road of Adaptive AI for Precision in Cybersecuritycited by 0
- 2026Diagnosing Generalization Failures in Fine-Tuned LLMs: A Cross-Architectural Study on Phishing Detectioncited by 0
- 2026LAAF: A Layered Accountability Architecture Framework for LLM Applicationscited by 0
- 2026LAAF: A Layered Accountability Architecture Framework for LLM Applications27 Aug 2026
- 2026Diagnosing Generalization Failures in Fine-Tuned LLMs: A Cross-Architectural Study on Phishing Detection15 Jan 2026
- 2025The Road of Adaptive AI for Precision in Cybersecurity5 Dec 2025
- 2025From Flows to Words: Can Zero-/Few-Shot LLMs Detect Network Intrusions? A Grammar-Constrained, Calibrated Evaluation on UNSW-NB1518 Oct 2025
- 2025L2M-AID: Autonomous Cyber-Physical Defense by Fusing Semantic Reasoning of Large Language Models with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (Preprint)8 Oct 2025
- 2025From Capabilities to Performance: Evaluating Key Functional Properties of LLM Architectures in Penetration Testing16 Sep 2025
- 2024ChatNVD: Advancing Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessment with Large Language Models6 Dec 2024
- 2024When LLMs Meet Cybersecurity: A Systematic Literature Review6 May 2024