How AI is reshaping cybersecurity

Late last year, state-sponsored Chinese hackers used artificial intelligence technology in an effort to infiltrate the computer systems of roughly 30 companies and government agencies worldwide, according to Anthropic, an American artificial intelligence safety and research company.

According to the company, this is the first reported case of a cyberattack in which AI technologies had gathered sensitive information with limited help from human operators. Human hackers, the company said, handled about 10 to 20 percent of the work needed to conduct the attack.

Technology from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and other companies could allow hackers to identify security holes in computer systems far faster than in the past, raising the stakes in the decades-long fight between hackers and the security experts guarding computer networks.

The latest AI can be used for both offense and defense. As hackers deploy AI to break and steal, security experts are also leaning on AI to spot flaws in their systems which includes those areas that have gone unnoticed for decades. The question is who finds the flaws first.

Nadya Bliss, executive director for the Advanced Capabilities for National Security Institute at Arizona State University, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss cybersecurity in the era of AI.