Demystifying the Mythos or Disrupting Bugonomics? From Zero-Day Asymmetry to Defender Remediation Throughput
arXiv:2605.24632v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Recent demonstrations of large language models producing candidate and confirmed vulnerabilities in production software have renewed the narrative that AI will reshape offensive and defensive security. Headlines emphasize capability; they rarely interrogate costs and incentives. This paper examines LLM-driven vulnerability discovery through a bugonomics lens: the operational economics of producing, proving, prioritizing, and fixing security-relevant defects. Historically, the most visible high-end bugonomics was offense-priced because productio
The increasing capability of large language models to identify software vulnerabilities is pushing the cybersecurity landscape to a critical inflection point, demanding a re-evaluation of 'bugonomics'.
This development challenges established paradigms of software security, impacting how vulnerabilities are discovered, prioritized, and remediated, with significant economic implications for both offensive and defensive cybersecurity sectors.
The economics of vulnerability discovery and remediation are shifting, with AI introducing new efficiencies and complexities, potentially democratizing capabilities previously accessible only to highly skilled exploit developers.
- · Cybersecurity defense firms (adopting AI for remediation)
- · AI developers
- · Software companies (with robust AI-driven security practices)
- · White hat hackers leveraging AI
- · Cybersecurity defense firms (slow to adopt AI)
- · Companies with legacy software and slow update cycles
- · Black hat hackers (if defense keeps pace with offense)
- · Traditional vulnerability assessment specialists
LLMs will become a standard tool in both offensive and defensive cybersecurity operations, increasing the velocity of vulnerability discovery and patching.
The cost-benefit analysis for software development will shift, with a greater emphasis on secure-by-design principles to mitigate AI-driven exploit generation.
National security strategies may need to incorporate AI-driven cyber offense and defense capabilities, leading to an AI arms race in the digital domain to maintain strategic advantage.
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Read at arXiv cs.LG