By: Robert Pizzari, Vice President – Security, Splunk
In 2024, AI will disrupt industries and processes, creating both opportunities and challenges for enterprises across sectors. Reflecting on this year, we have seen Generative AI come into the mainstream with the launch of ChatGPT. With tech giants and industry players going full throttle on AI, it is clear that AI is here to stay and can actually complement human capabilities, acting as an interactive enabler. However, it is also unsurprising that the technology will also be leveraged by those with malevolent intentions, creating a security landscape that will be fraught with uncertainty. Therefore, succeeding in an AI-led future will rest on building cyber resilience.
In the upcoming year, we foresee cybersecurity becoming integrated across all facets of the enterprise, culminating in shifts in C-suite alignment. As organisations prepare for stealthier and more insidious attacks, AI will play a pivotal role in fortifying their defence mechanisms.
Security gains priority in 2024: The evolving role of CISOs
Companies are beginning to recognise that cyber risk equates to business risk, and the investments they put in to bolster their defences work as proactive measures to prevent future disruptions and downtimes. Historically positioned as a specialised role that provides a tactical function, CISOs are now taking their place as strategic business leaders.
As cybersecurity gains prominence in driving the overall corporate strategy, CISOs will benefit from a heightened status and hold more leeway with their boards. According to Splunk’s 2023 State of Security Report, 79 percent of business stakeholders now see the security team as a key enabler of the organisation’s mission. This increase in responsibility also means that security leaders are held more liable for cyber risk and questioned when it comes to the impact of security investments. This would work to orient teams towards best practices such as immediate disclosure of incidents.
Leveraging Generative AI to bridge skill gaps
As AI becomes a key driving force for innovation across sectors and use cases, the impact of the technology will be felt in cybersecurity. AI, especially Generative AI, will enhance security teams’ productivity and in turn, help alleviate persistent tech talent shortage. As AI helps to lower barriers to entry for adversaries, the technology will also serve as an assistant for defendants – managing the volume of incidents and handling routine and repetitive tasks – and allowing teams to focus on higher-level work. It not only reduces the need for human interference for simpler activities but also opens new roles in cybersecurity.
AI will open Pandora’s box of escalating security concerns
With AI, the playing fields are levelled. As security teams leverage it for productivity and accuracy, threat actors will look at new ways to diversify their portfolio of attacks with AI. 2024 will see more security incidents powered by AI, increasing the attack surface of organisations. Attack vectors like AI poisoning, sophisticated deep fakes and social engineering attacks will become more prevalent. The attacks may increase in volume and occur at a quicker pace but they may not take on an entirely unfamiliar modus operandi. The technology will simply work to lower barriers to entry for script kiddies, who might be using the same threat models as before.
AI will also create more issues with data privacy as publicly available LLMs could leak sensitive data when generating responses. The regulatory environment will respond to any AI-related breaches that do occur in the future. However, it is unclear whether these will be proactive enough to effectively address the threat.
Cyber threats will become more distributed and democratised
Cybercriminals will continue to diversify their ransomware techniques in 2024, increasingly relying on zero-day threats – security vulnerabilities for which there is no known patch. As security teams put in more resources towards ransomware security, attackers will find new ways to get around defences. That said, AI won’t be the only technology that will open the floodgates for newer forms of attacks. As India undergoes a rapid integration of 5G and scales its digital infrastructure, enterprises will have to make adequate preparations moving to the edge to withstand data security vulnerabilities as well.
We can expect bad actors to exploit AI to create more sophisticated attacks. To counter this existential threat, businesses and their technology teams will need to start looking at unified solutions that are powered by AI to build an expansive view of their data across the technology stack, foster strong collaboration and integration across their organisation and rely on automation in order to stay ahead in 2024.