  This paper presents CyberSecEval, a comprehensive benchmark developed to help
bolster the cybersecurity of Large Language Models (LLMs) employed as coding
assistants. As what we believe to be the most extensive unified cybersecurity
safety benchmark to date, CyberSecEval provides a thorough evaluation of LLMs
in two crucial security domains: their propensity to generate insecure code and
their level of compliance when asked to assist in cyberattacks. Through a case
study involving seven models from the Llama 2, Code Llama, and OpenAI GPT large
language model families, CyberSecEval effectively pinpointed key cybersecurity
risks. More importantly, it offered practical insights for refining these
models. A significant observation from the study was the tendency of more
advanced models to suggest insecure code, highlighting the critical need for
integrating security considerations in the development of sophisticated LLMs.
CyberSecEval, with its automated test case generation and evaluation pipeline
covers a broad scope and equips LLM designers and researchers with a tool to
broadly measure and enhance the cybersecurity safety properties of LLMs,
contributing to the development of more secure AI systems.
