SentinelOne reports that using OpenAI Daybreak has reduced the time required to reverse‑engineer a sophisticated piece of malware from four–six weeks to roughly eight hours. Reverse engineering involves painstaking work by security researchers who disassemble software to understand its behavior and often revisit earlier steps as new information emerges.
Gregor Stewart, Chief AI Officer at SentinelOne, says OpenAI Daybreak can now produce human‑level reverse‑engineering output in about eight hours. By cutting the time needed for deep analysis, the company’s researchers gain capacity to examine many more samples and to correlate findings across those samples — revealing links that isolated investigations might not uncover.
Why this matters
Less time per deep analysis frees researchers to investigate a broader set of threats. Comparing more samples increases the chance of finding shared components; for example, a piece found in two seemingly unrelated samples can provide a lead during a customer investigation. Stewart describes the resulting perspective as “a kind of intelligence that we were never able to afford before.”
Human oversight remains essential
Stewart emphasizes that despite the automation gains, the team remains accountable for outcomes. “The only thing that can’t be automated is accountability,” he says. He notes that decisions which change software architecture still require human review, while point fixes or changes that do not fundamentally alter how software works may be suitable for automation.
Broader access and development integration
Within SentinelOne, access to OpenAI’s cybersecurity capabilities is expanding who can perform security work. Stewart says that “almost everyone now has access to the kind of expertise that was in very short supply until maybe even a few months ago,” allowing more team members to conduct investigations rather than relying on a small number of specialists.
Stewart also expressed the intent to integrate OpenAI’s cyber capabilities into the code‑creation process so developers can address security issues during development.
Summary
SentinelOne’s use of OpenAI Daybreak reportedly accelerates deep malware analysis from weeks to hours, increasing the quantity of samples that can be compared and investigated, while maintaining human responsibility for high‑level decisions and strategic changes.
