With great AI power comes great AI responsibility. While the most revolutionary tool since the beginning of the Internet is intended to ease our lives, it also eases hackers' lives. The current challenges of security teams and decision-makers are both staying ahead of the AI-driven hackers and getting prepared for the next battle
Over the last several years, we have witnessed the streamlined evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), impacting virtually every aspect of our lives, including our safety on the web. Indeed, AI has become both a catalyst for escalating cyber threats and a potent tool in fortifying our cyber defense.
According to Qualys, in 2023, the number of reported vulnerabilities soared to over 26,000 worldwide, marking the highest figure since the beginning of the Internet. The cybersecurity threats increased not only in numbers but in complexity partly due to the rise of AI. Both organizations and individual internet users should keep in mind that even the most life-changing tool, like AI, can be exploited for malicious purposes by threat actors.
Most cybercriminals use large language models like ChatGPT to perform different actions, such as personalize phishing emails and messages based on extensive data analysis of the user's online behavior, automate the generation of malicious code and develop malware that continuously mutates to evade detection, automate social engineering attacks, such as identity theft and financial fraud, and more.
Therefore, we are witnessing new challenges for security teams and decision-makers - staying ahead of ever-mutating threats that overwhelm cybersecurity professionals and getting prepared for the next battle.
This should be a mutual effort by all employees, as any factor in the workplace could be a potential loophole in the cyber wall – From education to cautious behavior to implementations of AI-powered security tools.
A survival kit for emerging risks
As cyber attacks keep evolving, security teams must anticipate the potential breaches beforehand by constantly building new strategies. AI-powered tools, such as SOAR platforms, enable security operators to streamline security workflows, to save time focusing on a big picture.
AI-driven platforms are designed to continuously learn from past incidents, predict potential security breaches, and adapt to new emerging threats. Therefore, by utilizing these platforms, security operators can mitigate risks associated with zero-day attacks and be prepared for whatever tomorrow brings.
IBM's case is a good example to illustrate this efficiency in numbers. Within the first year of implementation, IBM's security team used these AI capabilities to automate the closure of 70% of alerts and accelerate their threat management timeline by over 50%. Therefore, AI-powered cybersecurity software transformed from an expensive whim into a survival kit, that enables cybersecurity operators to keep up with a dynamic field of emerging risks.
The revolutionary AI era
Besides implementing AI solutions to the infrastructure, organizations should prioritize educating employees about the growing risks associated with AI-powered social engineering. Research from the University of North Dakota reveals that machine learning-based phishing detection technique achieves 94% accuracy in detecting phishing emails. However, it's crucial to address the remaining 6%, as this small margin represents the loophole that users must be vigilant to identify.
Therefore, AI enables us to scale up our defenses to confront the evolving landscape of cyber threats. Simultaneously, it allows us to harness the unique strengths of human context comprehension, which AI has not yet fully mastered.
The AI vs AI battle is another obstacle in the revolutionary AI era. A challenge that every huge invention needs to pass through to prove it's worth it and to take the world another step forward.
Mike Admon is the CEO of Unipath.
