"Defensive vs. Offensive AI: Why Security Teams Are Losing the AI War"

The weaponization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) against organizations with insufficient AI and Machine Learning (ML) experience gives bad actors an advantage in the AI cyberwar. Threat actors have a significant advantage over most organizations because they innovate faster than the most efficient enterprise, are capable of hiring talent to build new malware and test attack approaches, and use AI to change attack strategies in real-time. MasterCard's executive vice president of security and cyber innovation, Johan Gerber, warns that cybercriminals are already using AI to circumvent some global cybersecurity protections. AI has to be part of how cybersecurity is addressed. CEPS predicts that the AI-based solutions market will expand at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.6 percent between 2020 and 2027, reaching a market value of $46.3 billion by 2027. This indicates that companies are eager to invest in AI-based solutions. Almost 90 percent of CISOs and security leaders believe that weaponized AI attacks are inevitable. A recent Gartner survey found that just 24 percent of cybersecurity teams are adequately equipped to manage an AI-related attack. Nation-states and cybercriminal gangs are aware of the fact that companies are understaffed, and that many lack AI and ML expertise and defense technologies. In the third quarter of 2022, only 1 percent of 53,760 cybersecurity applicants possessed AI skills. Major companies are aware of the skills gap in cybersecurity and are striving to address it. Microsoft, for example, maintains a push to help community colleges in expanding the industry's workforce. This article continues to discuss the ongoing AI cyberwar, the shared goal between nation-states and cybercriminal gangs to weaponize AI, attackers targeting employee and customer identities, and containing the AI cybersecurity threat in the future. 

VB reports "Defensive vs. Offensive AI: Why Security Teams Are Losing the AI War"