Spear or Shield: The Role of Generative AI in Intelligent Network Services
Hongyang Du, Dusit Tao Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Kwok‐Yan Lam, Yuguang Michael Fang, Yonghui Li · IEEE Network · 2025
Generative AI (GenAI) models have been rapidly advancing, with a wide range of applications including intelligent networks and mobile AI-generated content (AIGC) services. However, GenAI create opportunities for novel security challenges due to its wide range of services applications and potential capabilities. In this paper, we examine the challenges and opportunities of GenAI in the realm of the security of intelligent network services, acting as both a “spear” for potential attacks and a “shield” as an integral part of various defense mechanisms. First, we present a comprehensive overview of the GenAI landscape, highlighting its applications and the techniques underpinning these advancements, especially large language and diffusion models. Then, we investigate the dynamic interplay between GenAI’s spear and shield roles, highlighting two primary categories of potential GenAI-related attacks and their respective defense strategies within wireless networks. A case study illustrates the impact of GenAI defense strategies on energy consumption in an image request scenario under data poisoning attack. Our results show that by employing an AI-optimized diffusion defense mechanism, energy can be reduced by 8.7%, and retransmission count can be decreased from 32 images, without defense, to just 6 images, showcasing the effectiveness of GenAI in enhancing network security.