Generative AI - cybersecurity opportunities & challenges

With over 19 years in the IT industry, Ben Verschaeren is a seasoned professional and the Director of Global Solutions at Sophos.

Based in Melbourne, he leads global strategic initiatives, educates on threat landscapes, and develops training tools focusing on real-world exploits.

Ben also directs a global sales engineering team responding to RFPs, and a software engineering team creating high-quality products for various uses. His prior roles include serving as a Solution Architect at JB HiFi, Australia's largest retailer, and at Thiess, the leading mining and construction company in Australia.

Ben’s unique blend of sales and engineering experience across diverse sectors enables him to drive tech-forward initiatives with an innovative approach, affirming his position as a key asset in the industry.

In this interview, Ben kicked off the interview by sharing his insights on drivers into the wide-spread popularity of the latest AI technology – “generative AI”.

00:11 – What is driving the enthusiasm with the latest AI breakthrough?
01:13 - Are we drowning in the sea of fear-mongering and hype?
01:34 - Leveraging machine learning and deep learning for malware detection is not new
02:01 - Successful detection of malware written using generative AI
02:17 - What is the key message to skeptical cyber defenders about Generative AI threats?
02:49 - 1) Don't be complacent 2) Understand the technology 3) Stay alert as tech is advancing fast
On discussing how generative AI could transform the cybersecurity landscape, Ben acknowledged that it could help increase the productivity of cyber defenders, as an “AI” personal assistant – such as “help you write code” or “help you write query”.

However, he also cautioned that the technology also introduces new threats.

Elaborating on some of the emerging threats, he said that contrary to expectations, malware generated by LLM can be more easily detected than phishing emails and synthetic voice.

To mitigate against such threats, he suggested enhancing business processes and controls (for example, robust fund transfer authorisation, to mitigate phishing risk). He also recommended conducting user awareness training regularly to align with the fast-evolving landscape of phishing tactics, emphasising the importance of understanding the "why."

Another threat is the potential of generative AI to “hallucinate” when making recommendations for software libraries. He pointed out this issue underscores the need to maintain a SBOM (software bill of materials), and implementing quality controls throughout the software development process.

Ben also recommended that organisations looking to embrace AI, develop an “AI policy”, providing guidance in areas such as the types of data or models that to be used during training and deployment. He also shared that middleware solutions are available to anonymise the data entered in the prompt, and check that no personally identifiable information (PII) is included.

Wrapping up, Ben notes that rapid pace of generative AI development and “the landscape is changing everyday”, and advises cyber defenders to “stay on top”, “don’t be complacent”, and it is “another area where and different threats are emerging every day”.

Recorded at Cloud Expo Asia, Singapore Marina Bay Sands, 12th October 2023

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[misscyberpenny]

00:11 – What is driving the enthusiasm with the latest AI breakthrough?
01:13 - Are we drowning in the sea of fear-mongering and hype?
01:34 - Leveraging machine learning and deep learning for malware detection is not new
02:01 - Successful detection of malware written using generative AI
02:17 - What is the key message to skeptical cyber defenders about Generative AI threats?
02:49 - 1) Don't be complacent 2) Understand the technology 3) Stay alert as tech is advancing fast

[brytonkalyi]

✓ I believe we are meant to be like Jesus in our hearts and not in our flesh. But be careful of AI, for it is just our flesh and that is it. It knows only things of the flesh (our fleshly desires) and cannot comprehend things of the spirit such as peace of heart (which comes from obeying God's Word). Whereas we are a spirit and we have a soul but live in the body (in the flesh). When you go to bed it is your flesh that sleeps but your spirit never sleeps (otherwise you have died physically) that is why you have dreams. More so, true love that endures and last is a thing of the heart (when I say 'heart', I mean 'spirit'). But fake love, pretentious love, love with expectations, love for classic reasons, love for material reasons and love for selfish reasons that is a thing of our flesh. In the beginning God said let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness. Take note, God is Spirit and God is Love. As Love He is the source of it. We also know that God is Omnipotent, for He creates out of nothing and He has no beginning and has no end. That means, our love is but a shadow of God's Love. True love looks around to see who is in need of your help, your smile, your possessions, your money, your strength, your quality time. Love forgives and forgets. Love wants for others what it wants for itself. Take note, love works in conjunction with other spiritual forces such as faith and patience. We should let the Word of God be the standard of our lives not AI. If not, God will let us face AI on our own and it will cast the truth down to the ground, it will be the cause of so much destruction like never seen before, it will deceive many and take many captive in order to enslave them into worshipping it and abiding in lawlessness. We can only destroy ourselves but with God all things are possible. God knows us better because He is our Creater and He knows our beginning and our end. Our prove text is taken from the book of John 5:31-44, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, Daniel 7-9, Revelation 13-15, Matthew 24-25 and Luke 21. Let us watch and pray... God bless you as you share this message to others.