Villanustre sees a future where AI could take the lead in cybersecurity. “As AI becomes more accurate in its responses and even creates intelligence threads (using technologies like auto-GPT, which stitches AI responses together with new auto-generated queries to refine and improve over time), it’s possible that the balance could tip the other way, with humans becoming assistants and AI taking control,” he explains.
While this may be the future of cybersecurity teams, CISOs today must have the talent to leverage this technology and oversee its proper use. “My role as a CISO is to protect our company, keep our employees safe, and keep our data secure. Working in partnership with our legal team, we have implemented an internal policy on how our employees can use generative AI tools on their work laptops for personal and work purposes,” says Lena Smart, CISO of the MongoDB database platform.
Leveraging AI goes beyond the CISO team. It requires collaboration across the enterprise. “Make sure your HR, legal, product, marketing, TechOps, security, and GRC teams understand the role of the CISO in the new world of AI,” Smart recommends.
AI can make CISOs’ jobs easier in some ways and harder in others. Their teams can use AI tools to improve their cybersecurity posture. Security operations centers (SOCs) receive thousands of alerts every day. “AI can help find the needles in the haystack and free up some human resources to perform other duties,” Raman says.
But threat actors are inevitably using AI tools to carry out el salvador mobile database attacks. “AI can help attackers impersonate humans, write the perfect phishing email, and identify vulnerabilities in seconds. It can also help attackers create more versatile and persistent malware and new attacks that would be difficult for humans to develop,” says Villanustre.
As CISOs and their teams learn to use AI to protect, threat actors are also learning to use the technology to exploit vulnerabilities and launch attacks. “This arms race will continue for the foreseeable future,” Conklin says.
Preparing for the future
We’ve barely scratched the surface of AI’s potential, both positive and negative. CISOs must not only grapple with the technology’s immediate impact, but also prepare for how it will impact their responsibilities in the future.
The first step to preparing for this future is staying informed. “There are breaking news and product updates coming out every day; it’s a deluge of information. So as a CISO, I have to take the time to be curious, learn about new developments, and think about how they might impact our security posture,” Smart says.
A CISO’s primary responsibility is “figuring out how to balance the risks and benefits of any disruptive technology,” Raman says. Once CISOs are armed with the latest AI knowledge, the next step is to determine what it means for their businesses.