How long before our entanglement with AI turns toxic? Take Snapchat’s ai knowing where you are when your location is off. Those eerily accurate targeted ads that make you wonder if your phone’s listening. Or how “Is AI going to take over [insert industry]” headlines are popping up every day.
Reality check: The same AI we’re busy taking sides over? It’s also our best shot at protecting your privacy and data.
AI’s Positive Impact on Cybersecurity
Protecting your organization’s resources, data and systems boils down to evaluating vast amounts of data to detect and investigate anomalies. Normally, this takes forever.
Our Artificially Intelligent ally simplifies and accelerates this process by:
- Automating repetitive tasks, analyzing large codebases and detecting issues that would take us much longer to identify.
- Detecting security vulnerabilities and emerging threats with higher accuracy, reducing false positives or human error.
- Summarizing long reports into key takeaways and actionable insights.
- Breaking down complex or technical language into simpler terms (a lifesaver when I had to read CrowdStrike’s bug fix analysis)
- Providing predictive defense by learning from past attacks to anticipate new ones.
Are Cybercriminals Using AI Too?
For every ‘AI is the future’ TED Talk, there’s a hacker proving it’s already the present. They’re using AI to:
- Gather intel about targets and identify specific attack vectors
- Automate large scale attacks and tweak tactics based on defense mechanisms encountered.
- Create convincing phishing emails free of the spelling and grammar errors that once made them easy to spot.
- Develop deepfakes and no, I’m not talking about Ghibli-style images. I’m talking about incredibly convincing fake videos, images and audios.
- Analyze password patterns from breached databases to predict your likely passwords.
Is AI going to take over cybersecurity?
In the early days of technology, people harbored the same fears of job displacement. Today, humans and machines work side by side and new jobs have emerged as a result. For instance, Microsoft’s Security copilot now has AI agents assisting with phishing, data security, and identity management.
While AI may reduce human involvement in certain roles, it will also create new opportunities. The real question isn’t whether AI will take over cybersecurity, it’s whether we can keep up with it and use it to our advantage?
Best Practices for Incorporating AI into Your Cybersecurity Strategy
According to the 2025 Secure employee access in the age of AI report, although most organizations are working on implementing AI controls, 60% have not yet started. For those who have or are considering, here’s best practices to incorporate into your cybersecurity strategy:
- Develop an AI strategy. Not every trending AI tool is worth integrating. It’s important to identify AI solutions that can integrate well into your systems.
- Enforce organizational policies. Regulate AI use among employees and ensure sensitive information is never shared with generative AI tools.
- Secure your AI. The garbage-in-garbage-out principle applies to AI models. Hackers can poison models by introducing malicious or misleading data, which can significantly undermine performance and reliability. Audit yours regularly and validate the integrity of your data.
- Finally, upskill! Free courses like Cisco’s Introduction to Modern AI are a great place to start.
