AI and Cybersecurity: The Future of Cyber Defense

Depending on who you ask, artificial intelligence (AI) is either the greatest weapon in the fight for cybersecurity or the greatest threat to its future integrity. The truth of the matter seems to lie somewhere between these two extremes. What is abundantly clear, however, is that AI will play a significant role going forward in both the offensive and defensive aspects of cybersecurity and companies wishing to maintain effective cybersecurity will embrace this reality sooner rather than later. As malicious actors increasingly adopt AI as a means for attack, it will become even more necessary for defenders to evolve and employ AI solutions in order to effectively maintain security.

AI Benefits and Applications in Cybersecurity

The potential applications for AI are seemingly limitless and as Kacy Zurkus writes for RSAC, “From entertainment to travel and hospitality, there are few industries that are not hopping on the proverbial Artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon.” While most industries may see the adoption of AI as a means of increasing speed and efficiency, in cybersecurity, the employment of AI is necessary to meet the escalating threats presented by these tools in the hands of bad actors. In her RSAC blog post, Tatyana Sanchez covers a few of the myriad uses for AI in cybersecurity ranging from more effective biometric identifiers for use in authentication to entire systems that can analyze and interpret patterns in data to identify aberrant or suspicious trends. AI’s ability to recognize these patterns is particularly useful in spotting previously elusive attacks such as fileless malware and synthetic identity fraud. 

Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Trends

At RSA Conference 2024, the challenges, opportunities and future trends facing AI were thoroughly discussed by industry leading experts in panels like Tackling Deepfakes, Wars, and Other Security Threats in the GenAI World and Private Sector's Power Play: Shaping AI and Cybersecurity Policy. Industry luminaries covered many of the exciting possibilities, frightening scenarios, and potential regulatory pitfalls that AI presents for the future. AI is currently being employed effectively to help in a variety of scenarios ranging from creating accurate aged images of missing children to maximizing the deployment of resources to areas in need of disaster relief. However, with its rapid evolution comes an increasing need for guidance and regulation to safeguard against misuse. The cybersecurity community will be tasked with evolving in response to a changing threat landscape while ensuring that the defensive uses of AI are developed with appropriate compensatory controls. Moving forward, the cybersecurity community will become increasingly reliant upon AI as a means of counteracting the volume and speed of attacks created by bad actors leveraging its offensive power.

AI Use by Adversaries

In AI and Machine Learning: The Double-Edged Sword in Cybersecurity, Isla Sibanda explains the various ways that malicious actors are using AI as a means for attack. Specifically, adversaries are using AI and Machine Learning (ML) in the initial stages of social engineering attacks to automate the initial approaches with carefully crafted emails that have been tailored to the specific target, making them significantly more convincing than the easily recognized, grammatically incorrect, generic phishing attempts of the past. Hackers are also using AI’s capabilities to examine large amounts of data and recognize patterns to guess user generated passwords with a higher degree of efficiency. In addition, AI also represents yet another attack surface unto itself, as criminals are increasingly using an approach known as data poisoning, an attack in which the datasets being used to train AI systems are compromised to manipulate the results. This can lead to a system that overlooks certain attacks or even allows for the installation of backdoors leaving openings for future exploitation.

AI vs. Traditional Cybersecurity: Which is Better?

AI is ideal for employment in scenarios that require processing large volumes of data or numerous repetitive tasks. AI also excels in flexibility as it can rapidly recognize shifts in patterns and proactively defend against emerging threats. However, AI based cybersecurity approaches are only as good as the data used to train them. That data can be limited, corrupted, broken, or even stolen, which presents additional areas for attack. Traditional cybersecurity uses processes that are more transparent and easily parsed for dissection and adjustment. Traditional methods are also not limited by datasets, nor do they present additional privacy concerns. In addition, traditional cybersecurity leverages humans to be truly creative and innovative as a means of solving complex problems. While AI should be used as part of a comprehensive cybersecurity system, it is not currently suited for use as the only means of defense.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Effective cybersecurity should employ a variety of approaches to defend against malicious actors. In its current state, AI is just one of the many tools that should comprise an effective defensive strategy. While AI excels at analyzing and interpreting huge amounts of data, recognizing patterns, and identifying threats within these patterns, traditional cybersecurity still has the edge when it comes to innovative, outside the box thinking and problem solving in response to novel attacks. However, as cybercriminals increasingly leverage the power of AI, it will be necessary for cybersecurity teams to respond in kind. In the very near future, it is likely that bad actors will use AI to attack with a speed and volume that can only be countered with defensive AI systems. While there will always be a need for the human element to drive creativity and innovation, the cybersecurity industry is at a point where the adoption of AI is not just about increasing speed or efficiency, it is about surviving and recognizing the inevitable role that AI will play in the future threat landscape.