- AI is accelerating both offensive and defensive aspects of cybersecurity, says Akshay Joshi
- 87% believe AI-driven cyberthreats are the fastest growing risks in cybersecurity
- Cybersecurity tool adoption rose from 37% to 64% amid changing AI-related threats
Artificial intelligence is supercharging both the defence and the offence sides of the cyber arms race, according to Akshay Joshi, head of the World Economic Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity.
Joshi spoke about the latest report the organisation had put out regarding cybersecurity and noted that AI became a game changer in the realm of cybersecurity. "AI Brings with it a number of risks, as per the report, as 87% of people believe that cyberthreats and vulnerabilities due to AI are the fastest growing cyber risk," Joshi told NDTV Profit.
He also noted that there was a proportionate increase of people improving their cybersecurity capabilities to address the changing landscape. Just about 37% had any tools to assess their cybersecurity but it has gone up 64% this year. There is a growing concern that questions the need to adopt AI at the expense of security, the WEF's cybersecurity head said.
He also stated that respondents had reported looking at how AI can be harnessed to support cyber defenders. He noted that AI was also proving useful in the detection of phishing hacks, anomalies, and intrusion from malicious entities. He stated that despite there being complex risks from AI adoption, there was an equally better response from cybersecurity entities.
Outside of AI, geopolitics has also become a defining feature of cyber security strategies in the current era, as per Joshi.
"As of today, cybersecurity is definitely considered as the fifth dimension of defence, this automatically gives an indication that no nation has a strategy that does not take cybersecurity into account," Joshi stated.
As per the aforementioned report, 91% of organisations had said that they adopted their cyber strategies due to geopolitical reasons, only 31% expressed low confidence in their nations to safeguard cyber security. However, this was an increase from last year's 26%.
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