HOW WILL AI CHANGE CYBER OPERATIONS?

The U.S. government somehow seems to be both optimistic and pessimistic about the impact of AI on cyber operations. On one hand, officials say AI will give the edge to cyber defense. For example, last year Army Cyber Command’s chief technology officer said, “Right now, the old adage is the advantage goes to the attacker. Today, I think with AI and machine learning, it starts to shift that paradigm to giving an advantage back over to the defender. It’s going to make it much harder for the offensive side.” On the other hand, the White House’s AI Executive Order is studded with cautionary language on AI’s potential to enable powerful offensive cyber operations. How can this be?

The rapid pace of recent advancements in AI is likely to significantly change the landscape of cyber operations, creating both opportunities as well as risks for cybersecurity. At the very least, both attackers and defenders are already discovering new AI-enabled tools, techniques, and procedures to enhance each of their campaigns. We can also expect the attack surface itself to change because AI-assisted coding will sometimes produce insecure code. AI systems and applications developed on top of them will also become subject to cyber attack. All of these changes complicate the calculus.