CIO OPINION
GenAI has become the latest form of shadow IT that CISOs and CIOs must deal with .
Jim Richberg , Head of Cyber Policy and Global
Field CISO , Fortinet
GenAI elevating threat actor capability to nation state level
A decade ago , only nation-states had data centres and computing power making it possible to exploit large data sets , but today ’ s AI-driven revolution in data mining and growth of computing power means massive data sets have become exploitable for threat actors , says Jim Richberg at Fortinet .
Today ’ s chief information security officers , CISOs face new cybersecurity challenges because of the increasing use of artificial intelligence , AI , particularly generative AI , GenAI . This is not a surprise given the growing use of GenAI in the workplace , with fully two-thirds of organisations last year reporting that they were already beginning to use it and only 3 % of enterprises not planning to adopt it .
AI has become a double-edged sword for cybersecurity . On the one hand , it has lowered the barrier to entry into cybercrime , enabling would-be criminals to generate malware even when they lack programming skills and providing more sophisticated criminals with capabilities few could have imagined a relatively short time ago .
Elevating threat actors
Cyber defenders can take advantage of AI for intelligent automation and defence strategies . AI has the potential to level the playing field even against AI-equipped adversaries and the dynamic threats they pose .
A would-be malicious cyber actor no longer needs any programming skills using GenAI because large language model , LLM AI tools can be used to write malware . AI is also used to quickly exploit software vulnerabilities once they are known , giving malicious actors increased potential to weaponize and exploit these vulnerabilities more quickly than many customers who apply vendor patches or updates .
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