The evolution of cybersecurity in the age of generative AI

by Daniel Valle for TechRadar

It's no secret that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently revolutionizing every industry, and that includes cybersecurity. However, this revolution can produce some unwanted outcomes, such as hijacking by unscrupulous and malicious Generative AI models. For instance, when ChatGPT was first introduced in 2022, it took the world by storm. Since then, we have seen replicas of ChatGPT introduced on the dark web to facilitate a new era of highly malicious and AI-driven attacks.

Now given the advancements of Generative AI, attacks are being deployed within the speed of seconds and minutes – not days or weeks – which is far beyond human capacity to detect and respond to. In fact, according to Dell Secureworks Counter Threat Unit cybercriminals are deploying ransomware within a day from the initial point of infiltrating an organization. This time has dropped significantly in 2023 down from 4.5 days in 2022 and 5.5 days the year before that.

Unfortunately, the majority of organizations are not well placed to combat these new threats, as they are not investing in the most cost-efficient and effective cybersecurity solutions. When we consider that worldwide spending on security solutions and services is forecast to be $219 billion in 2023 – yet, during the first quarter of 2023, more than six million data records were exposed worldwide through data breaches – this is a concerning outlook.

So, what can businesses do to end this cycle and gain the most value out of their cybersecurity investments? Half the battle is understanding AI and how it is being used by both attackers and defenders to augment their capabilities.