Vaibhav Dutta, Global Head-Cybersecurity Products and Services, Tata Communications, says the future of cybersecurity depends on embracing innovation while safeguarding privacy and security.
With the rapid adoption of AI continuing to grow, there is an increased pressure on businesses to immediately implement AI as the latest innovation.
According to McKinsey, 65% of businesses reported regularly using AI (McKinsey Global Survey, 2024).
But alongside the clear benefits of AI, businesses are also noticing an increase in risks that come hand-in-hand with the technology. Around 51% of organisations consider cybersecurity a risk of AI, with 33% working to mitigate this risk (McKinsey Global Survey, 2024).
As with any powerful tool, there are new risks, particularly in the hands of malicious actors. As we integrate AI into cybersecurity frameworks, we must strike a careful balance – leveraging its capabilities while addressing its potential dangers. Here, I’ll explore AI’s impact on cybersecurity and analyse what organisations can do to protect themselves using a thoughtful business approach.
The Bright Side: AI’s Transformative Impact on Cybersecurity
AI is quickly becoming an invaluable asset for cybersecurity professionals. It provides the automation, speed, and efficiency necessary to keep up with the increasingly complex landscape of cyber threats. Perhaps the most revolutionary application of AI lies in incident response. Traditionally, incident response teams worked tirelessly to detect, analyse, and mitigate cyberattacks. But the adoption of Virtual AI SOC analysts – which are AI-powered systems designed to augment or automate certain tasks – means that alert triage, threat detection and vulnerability assessment can be done instantaneously. This significantly reduces response times and human error to improve the level of security posture for businesses.
Large language models have the unique ability to sift through vast amounts of data by analysing network traffic and user behaviour at a scale and speed that would be impossible for human analysts to replicate. This is particularly effective at identifying new attack vectors which might otherwise go unnoticed until exploited by an attacker.
AI also plays a critical role in vulnerability management. By analysing data from various sources, such as security scans, system logs,and threat intelligence reports, AI can automatically prioritise security vulnerabilities based on potential risk. It can simulate attack scenarios to assess the impact of an attack, recommending patches and fixes with a level of precision and speed unmatched by human teams.
The Dark Side: How AI Fuels Cyber Threats
Despite its transformative potential, AI also poses significant risks. Just as it helps defenders, it can equally empower attackers, leading to more sophisticated cyberattacks. AI’s ability to process social media profiles and personal information means that malicious attackers can create personalised phishing scams or convincing deepfake videos. The realism of these scams makes them far more difficult to detect than originally thought.
In the cybersecurity landscape, we’ve seen an increase in new types of malwares. Traditional malware development requires manual coding, but with AI, attackers can rapidly generate malicious code that changes its form to avoid detection by security systems. This adaptability makes it much harder for traditional security teams to keep up with evolving threats.
AI can also be used to automate attack strategies to exploit known vulnerabilities across multiple targets in a matter of minutes. Attackers can launch widespread campaigns with greater speed and efficiency, targeting critical infrastructure to significantly increase the risk to businesses.
Even as these threats become more sophisticated, traditional cybersecurity methods are struggling to keep pace. The speed at which attackers can create and deploy new types of malware strategies leaves businesses constantly playing catch-up. The result is an ever-escalating arms race between defenders and attackers, with each side leveraging increasingly advanced AI tools.
The Risks of Over-Reliance and Ethical Considerations
As this innovative technology has become more integrated into cybersecurity within the last two years, some businesses have started to over-rely on AI. While the capabilities of these systems are impressive, they are fallible. AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on, and they can make mistakes or fail to recognise attack methods. Human oversight remains essential to ensure that AI’s responses are in line with best practices and ethical standards.
Data privacy remains a significant concern when deploying AI in cybersecurity. While it can be used positively, for example, to develop anonymised data security models, the negative impact is greater. AI models used for training can pose privacy challenges or if AI data sets contain bias, this can be reflected in the outputs.
To mitigate these risks, organisations must implement strong data privacy and security guidelines, addressing data encryption, access controls, and conduct regular security audits. But striking the balance between innovation and security can be difficult; the way around this is to embed security in the development process and adopt a risk-based approach, implementing a culture of security and continuous monitoring.
Navigating the Balance: How to Leverage AI Safely
While the risks associated with AI are significant, they can be mitigated with a thoughtful approach to its integration into cybersecurity strategies. For cybersecurity professionals, it’s critical to integrate AI in a way that complements traditional security measures rather than replace them. This, with regular audits of AI systems, can help identify vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with industry regulations.
For businesses to stay protected, they need to prioritise data quality and security. By choosing transparent AI models and tools that provide insights into how they make decisions, building robust defences with LLM firewalls, and investing in people training and education, businesses can reach a greater level of security.
For businesses to thrive, organisations must consider ethical risks, regulatory oversight and the importance of human expertise which is essential in ensuring that AI serves as a force for good in the ongoing battle against cyber threats. The future of cybersecurity depends on our ability to embrace innovation while safeguarding privacy and security.
