Swapna Bapat, Vice President of Product Marketing at Palo Alto Networks, shed light on the evolving landscape of cybersecurity and highlighted the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on both offensive and defensive strategies. . Speaking to Ritu Singh at CNBC-TV18-Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave on Saturday, December 16, Bapat said that while AI will help bad actors become more sophisticated, it will also help users protect themselves from such attacks. He said it was helpful.
Advanced Phishing Attacks: A Growing Concern
Bapat acknowledged the growing threat from sophisticated phishing attacks and stressed that it is becoming increasingly easier to orchestrate such attacks. This conversation highlighted the need for heightened vigilance in the face of these evolving cyber threats.
“Phishing emails look very good because of their very sophisticated elegance. Even the domain names are very authentic. So we conducted an experiment internally. The InfoSec team We used an algorithm to create phishing emails and the hit rate was: ” 25% increase. Therefore, it has become easier to create more sophisticated attacks,” he explained.
Democratizing AI and scaling up attacks
One of the key insights from the discussion was the democratization of AI, allowing individuals to train models without requiring a master’s degree. Mr. Bapat expressed concern about the potential consequences of significantly increasing the scale of cyberattacks. As AI becomes more accessible, the challenge of ensuring system security also intensifies.
“What technologies are we using to counter these more sophisticated attacks, and what opportunities does it provide for AI to be able to counter these phishing attacks and so on? Over the past few years, cybersecurity has become more and more popular. Vendors are (increasingly) using AI. The opportunity to use AI now lies in neural networks and deep learning AI models. We need to have a dialogue with each other,” Bapat said.
Expanding the attack surface: Industries at risk
The integration of AI across sectors, from marketing to finance, is expanding the attack surface and presenting new opportunities for malicious actors. Bapat emphasized the need for a proactive approach to security, especially as the industry continues to adopt his AI technology.
“The adoption of AI technology is essential to prevent unauthorized sharing of sensitive data such as driving license information, which varies by region such as Karnataka and Maharashtra. , including the ability to implement workarounds for data breaches. The use of AI in this context represents a significant advance in security measures,” she said.
Image recognition and text leak prevention using AI
While AI has proven effective in image recognition, Bapat emphasized the need to develop text recognition capabilities to prevent data leaks. Palo Alto Networks is actively working on solutions that address this critical gap in security protocols, she said.
Faster response times in cybersecurity
Bapat emphasized that AI is playing a pivotal role in significantly reducing the median response time in cybersecurity. The time to detect potential threats has been dramatically reduced, allowing security teams to quickly respond to and mitigate millions of attacks.
“By being able to analyze large amounts of data and intelligently make recommendations, we can reduce average response times, reducing average detection time to minutes, detection to seconds to response, and response to minutes. In fact, cybersecurity has been used in the past, and AI has been used very effectively to keep people safe,” Bapat said.