CS Jan-Feb 2024

artificial intelligence
AI - WHERE NEXT?
WITH EVER MORE ALARMING NEWS EMERGING ABOUT THE PERILS OF AI, HOW MIGHT THE TECHNOLOGY
ADVANCE AND MUTATE FROM HERE - AND WHAT WILL THAT MEAN FOR THE SECURITY INDUSTRY?
As AI technologies become ever more
sophisticated, the security risks
associated with their use and the
potential for misuse will increase
correspondingly. "Hackers and malicious
actors can harness the power of AI to
develop more advanced cyberattacks,
bypass security measures and exploit
vulnerabilities in systems," warns global
media company Forbes. It's a dispiriting
picture. Does it suggest that AI may
gradually spiral out of control, to the
point where it dictates, rather than
follows? And what might that dystopian
vision mean not just for our industry,
but for humanity as a whole?
However, as David Mahdi, CIO, Transmit
Security, points out, technology is
essentially "morally neutral" and can be
used for good or ill. Just as AI and Large
Language Models (LLMs) can be used for
positive purposes, they can similarly be
used with malicious intent. "It was not
even one year after the release of ChatGPT
that bad actors developed generative AIenabled
tools, such as FraudGPT and
EvilGPT," he points out. "Back in February
2023, we predicted that by 2024 attackers
would have a Generative AI service that
would include: reconnaissance information
on specific companies, malicious code,
software vulnerabilities, zero day vulnerabilities,
compromised identities, credit
cards, loyalty programme accounts,
customer and employee personally identifiable
information to help with social
engineering attacks and more. We were
right, if a few months off."
The sheer scale and velocity of attacks will
require organisations to start employing a
holistic AI-based approach, in order to
fight these new threats, Mahdi warns.
"They need to go from relying on toughto-scale
detection to overall automated
defence strategies which empower teams -
whatever size or level - to leverage AI/ML
tools that enhance real-time detection, as
well as offline analysis, case management,
model improvement and proactive
protection."
ECOSYSTEMS WILL BE STREAMLINED
As the industry's focus shifts towards
operational agility and acceleration,
companies will look to streamline their
security ecosystems, limiting suppliers to
a finite number of reliable and effective
vendors, predicts Mike Spanbauer, field
CTO at Juniper Networks. "The complexity
of multi-system integrations will give way
to vendors who can integrate efficiently
and provide technology that just works.
These vendors will be relied on to deploy
secure IT systems, underpinned by artificial
intelligence and machine learning [ML] that
ensure fully optimised user experiences.
This will be especially important as the
quantifiable benefits from the use of AI
related to analytics and operational
playbooks develop further. These benefits
will help bridge some of the heavy lifting
that Security Operations Center (SOC)
analysts do today. The technology will also
benefit how response and mitigation
capabilities translate into operational ones."
At the same time, AI will continue to
prove dangerous in the hands of threat
actors, accelerating their ability to write
and deliver effective threats. "Organisations
will need to adapt how they approach
defence measures and leverage new,
proven methods to detect and block
threats. We will see the rise of nearly realtime
measures that can identify a potentially
malicious file or variant of a known
threat at line rate." We can also expect
organisations to make larger investments
in Zero Trust network security strategies,"
Spanbauer continues.
ACCELERATED THINKING
One potential benefit to society that AI
offers, states David Trossell, CEO and CTO
of Bridgeworks, is the use of AI and ML in
WAN Acceleration. Why is that? "Well, with
increasing reliance on digital technologies,
latency and packet loss could have their
own field day by slowing down Wide Area
Networks, such as the internet. When
WANs are slow, hackers can intercept data
that's often unencrypted in flight. A slow
WAN can also extend the time it takes to
back up and restore sensitive data that is
required to maintain an organisation's
service continuity.
"WAN Optimisation doesn't live up to its
promise. Data is sent unencrypted and is
then re-encrypted at either end of the pipe.
WAN Optimisation often doesn't live up to
its data and network acceleration promise.
AI is being used with SD-WANs and it's a
great technology, but it, too, needs a boost
with WAN Acceleration to increase the
speed of encrypted data transfers.
"Organisations must consider how they
protect their data, and how they can
increase their bandwidth utilisation by
mitigating the effects of latency and packet
loss to improve their ability to maintain
service continuity and to prevent cyberattacks.
WAN Acceleration can be an
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