The world seems to be focusing on new developments in artificial intelligence to help with a wide variety of issues, including staff shortages, but will AI help or harm security teams?
A few months ago I asked myself, “Are bots and robots the answer to the labor shortage?”
The blog lists many examples of the advancement of robots. Here are some of the last few months:
“The labor shortage caused by COVID19 has been a boon to robot sales as companies scramble to fill jobs amid increasing consumer demand for goods and services following the pandemic.
Robotics orders from January through October hit 29,000 units for a record $ 1.48 billion versus $ 1.09 billion a year ago, beating the 2017 record for the same period of $ 1.47 billion. Dollars, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) said in a press release.
The United States is grappling with a labor shortage that is hampering its economic recovery, but businesses are not standing still to keep production going. As these vacancies grow, they are turning to automation to pick up any slack.
“Orders for new robots have reached an all-time high in 2021.”
From fast food to agriculture, the Covid19 has accelerated the rise of worker robots. This in turn will jeopardize more jobs and make the need to reformulate society even more urgent ”.
However, the Guardian article also points out:
“There is no doubt that the pandemic and the resulting shortage of workers is accelerating the push towards the implementation of artificial intelligence, robotics and technology. ‘other forms of automation. In the UK, the trend is further amplifying as the impact of Brexit on the workforce becomes evident. However, the reality is that most of these technologies are unlikely to arrive in time to provide a solution to the immediate challenges facing employers. …
“Over the course of a decade or more, however, the overall impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on the job market is likely to be significant, and in some specific areas, technologies could lead to dramatic changes over the years. ahead. And many workers will soon be faced with the reality that the invasion of automation technology will not be limited to the often low-paying and less desirable occupations where the shortage of workers is currently concentrated. The highest paid jobs that workers are sure to want to keep will be in the crosshairs as AI and robotics continue to advance relentlessly.
Most recently, VentureBeat wrote: “Security AI is the next big thing”.
This hostile threat landscape has led organizations like Microsoft to adopt AI as part of their internal and external cybersecurity strategy. “We’re seeing this incredible increase in attack volume, from human-operated ransomware to all kinds of zero-day attacks,” said Ann Johnson, corporate vice president of security, compliance and identity, Microsoft.
One of the most famous AI applications this year happened at the Tokyo Olympics when Darktrace AI identified a malicious Raspberry Pi Internet of Things (IoT) device that an intruder had placed in the office of a directly involved national sports organization Device port by scanning nearby devices, blocking connections and providing human analysts with information about the scanning activity so they can conduct further investigation.
“Darktrace was able to rule out that there was anything new in the environment that was showing interesting behavior,” said Mike Beck, director of global information security at Darktrace. Beck pointed out that behavior in relation to the communication profiles that exist in this environment has changed significantly.
THE DARK SIDE OF AI
In May I wrote this article with the question, “AI is everywhere: should we be excited or worried?”
I’ve covered many good, bad, and ugly examples of AI on this blog and also anticipated a talk by Bruce Schneier that he gave at the RSA 2021 conference – Schneier believes AI analysis will first benefit hackers. “If AI can find vulnerabilities in computer code, it will be of great help to hackers everywhere,” he said.
Here is Schneier’s full main presentation:
Continuing this topic, Fortune magazine writes that “cybersecurity experts warn of the disadvantages of AI in combating threats”:
“The greater part of the problem, in the view of both experts, is that attackers make less use of AI and automation”. complex, but still very effective, scale that enables them to exploit vulnerabilities in security systems…
“’The bad guys crush a lot of us in terms of automation,’ he said. ” They get much, much better. They use intelligent systems and AI to educate, which can be very effective in narrowing down targets. They usually use artificial intelligence to break down software in order to find out where vulnerabilities exist in some way.
When asked for advice at the end of the event, Roese offered a simple idea: “Don’t see AI in the context of security as an additional feature. You have to treat it as a core component of all things security, just like all things business process or all things application. Don’t split it up into a team of specialists dealing with AI in isolationBuild and invest in capacity across the company because it’s a tool and if you don’t use it everywhere, you’re basically leaving something on the table.
The Council on Foreign Relations recently wrote about generating AI code. and cybersecurity, which says AI will revolutionize the way we write computer programs. The US government and industry must invest in AI as a cybersecurity tool.
I also like this article by Lisa O’Reilly, who describes how “the future of browser security lies in artificial intelligence and machine learning”:
“As software becomes more secure and more secure against malware, the threat environment has shifted from cyberattacks towards phishing. But unlike in the past, where these attacks were predominantly via email, hackers now target multiple channels such as mobile devices, apps and because phishing is a human problem that exploits emotions and deals with psychology. Out of fear and uncertainty, conventional calculation methods are not enough to defend yourself against it. One of the biggest problems? The Navigator “.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When I keep coming back to this topic of robots, AI, jobs, future and cybersecurity, I think about current solutions that become problems. What can we do now that we will regret later? It’s a very difficult subject to understand. and one that I think we need to re-examine over and over again.
The Pew Research Center wrote this in-depth article earlier this year describing its AI concerns:
“A large number of respondents argued that geopolitical and economic competition are the main drivers for AI developers, while moral concerns get in the background. A portion of these experts said that AI toolmakers work in groups with little or no incentive to develop systems that take ethical concerns into account.
“Some respondents found that even if workable ethical requirements could be established, they could not be enforced or regulated because most AI designs are proprietary, hidden, and complex. How can harmful ‘outcomes’ be diagnosed and addressed? “Some of these experts also point out that existing AI systems and databases are often used to create new AI applications. This means that the prejudices and ethically questionable aspects of the current systems are built into the new systems. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to solve pre-existing problems. ”
