Former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers said at an event Tuesday that artificial intelligence is a “double-edged sword” from a government cybersecurity perspective, offering some advantages and disadvantages.
“that [AI] This will allow us to gain more knowledge about what our adversaries are doing to predict what they are going to do. It also increases an entity’s ability to infiltrate a system,” Rogers said.
Rogers said that while AI will give the U.S. government the opportunity to learn about adversary capabilities and help predict its next moves, there is also the potential for foreign adversaries to leverage the same tools for the same purpose against the U.S. government. It was explained that there is a sex. Artificial intelligence can give the United States and its adversaries advantages on both the offensive and defensive sides of cyber warfare.
“This allows attackers to simulate and predict what defenses a company or target might take,” Rogers said. “We want to be in a position where you not only expect but deny them the ability to do some things and push them to do things that are useful for you and not for them.” And we’re not there yet. We’re trying, but we’re not there yet.”
Rogers, along with 20 guests, spoke at Tuesday’s event hosted by news outlet Semafor. The conversation primarily revolved around the landscape of cybersecurity in the AI era, particularly in the areas of the financial industry, national security, and misinformation campaigns. Across industries and sectors, speakers came to the same conclusion. While technology offers users unique opportunities, it also exposes them to new risks.
Chris Novak, managing director of Verizon Cybersecurity Consulting, shared a similar assessment of AI’s capabilities in business.
When discussing Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), Novak suggested that both companies will have an advantage in the short term, but that over time, attackers will catch up with more diverse attacks. .
According to Security Week, a cybersecurity industry publication, the DBIR is one of the most anticipated annual reports on data breaches and cyber incidents. It has been published continuously for 16 years.
“We’re going to see our defense continue to work harder in that area, maybe even a little bit more forward than our offense,” Novak said. “Now, we don’t want anyone to think, ‘Well, that means we’re doing well.’ The reality is, as we’ve seen with ransomware and business breaches, the attack landscape continues to evolve. And AI will allow us to do that more creatively.”
Jenny Mena, chief information security officer at Sallie Mae, sees a similar pattern when AI makes inroads into the consumer banking industry.
“Like most things, I think this is both a threat and an opportunity,” Mena said.
Menna sees AI adaptation as a solution to reduce some of the administrative work done by humans and a way to enhance code writing.
“We can offload the work of people in the security organization, allowing their brains to work more productively, and we can take some of the administrative work off of them,” Menna said. “It allows us to write better code and reduce vulnerabilities.”
Like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Novak, Mr. Mena warned that providing broad access to AI could enhance the ability of fraudsters operating within the industry.
“Again, we really need to worry about the lowering of the bar for bad actors to get into the business and the kind of fraud that we deal with on a regular basis,” Mena said. .
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