As cities digitalize their infrastructure and services, today’s cybersecurity specialists are already enlisting the forces of AI to help protect them from outside attack.
Worryingly, while these new techniques might currently be to our advantage they could soon turn into an even more powerful ally for our adversaries. It is only a matter of time and money before someone builds a module that will allow other criminals to compile and use AI-infused malware.
AI-based attacks could come in a myriad of different forms, such as smart-phishing offensives or self-sustained hivenets or swarmbots which are capable of performing attacks without any human supervision. We could even see the arrival of so-called polymorphic malware that will continually evolve during the course of an attack.
In the face of these new and alarming threats, I believe that it is time to rip up the existing, static playbook of cybersecurity and adopt a new, more dynamic approach. By harnessing the power of AI and intelligent algorithms, we can orchestrate and automate our response and take the fight to the attackers.
Just as in contemporary military conflict, the days of massive battlefield clashes are over. Instead, we will see the emergence of hybrid warfare, consisting of thousands of isolated incidents and engagements, most of them without any human supervision at all. Adaptive security tools are going to determine the future of the digital battlefield
Christian Reilly, CTO Citrix
As published in TIME magazine
