The Next Generation of AI-Driven Cybersecurity: A Conversation with Industry Expert Khader Mohammed
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To understand the future of AI in cybersecurity, we sat down with renowned industry expert Khader Mohammed. With over 20 years of experience spanning IT security, cloud security, compliance, and identity access management, Khader offers unique insights on how AI will transform cyber defense.
In this in-depth interview, Khader shares his vision for the next generation of intelligent security, the risks of large language models, strategies to reduce false positives, and key steps to position cybersecurity as a value creator vs. cost center.
Let's dive in to explore the future of cybersecurity AI.
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From Physical Security to Cloud Security: Khader's Winding Path in Cybersecurity
Khader's journey in cybersecurity began in the physical domain.
"I started mostly as a consultant with physical security and then application security," he recalls.
From there, he progressively worked his way up to cloud security, while expanding his expertise across compliance, identity access management, network security, and privacy along the way.
In recent years, Khader noticed many clients struggling to gain visibility and control over cloud security:
“I have seen there is not much emphasis given on cloud security today and many of my clients were struggling to get a view or handle on cloud security.”
With the rise of DevOps practices, containerization, and hybrid cloud architectures, organizations face new security challenges. Meanwhile, data breaches and ransomware attacks are surging.
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Khader realized security teams desperately need better solutions to limit breach impact, ensure zero trust security, deliver robust identity governance, and analyze logs and events to detect anomalies.
"That basically gave me a little more focus into ‘Hey this is an area where most of the CISOs and CIOs are having sleepless nights,’" he explains. "The next thing they know they’re being demanded ransom for their own data that they’re supposed to protect securely."
In response, Khader dedicated himself to helping clients build mature cyber governance programs to secure the cloud era.
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Battling Supply Chain Attacks with SBOMs
Given his extensive experience, I asked Khader to share strategies and tools he uses to defend against supply chain attacks.
Attacks targeting open-source software supply chains surged by 650% in 2021, and 700% in 2022 - so this is a critical threat vector.
Khader emphasizes the importance of creating Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) and cataloging all components in your applications and services.
"You need to have a software supply chain security framework. And the only way to do that is identify the critical components in your software security chain - whether it's first party code or open source libraries," he advises.
Once you generate SBOMs identifying all dependencies, you can scan for known vulnerabilities and prioritize remediation. He explains:
"You can run the CI/CD pipeline scan and identify all the dependencies, analyzing all the project code and projects, and then getting recommendations for more secure options and container images."
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This end-to-end visibility enables you to detect issues early and guide developers to apply fixes quickly.
Khader built a custom dashboard to give clients insights into supply chain risks across their environments, including:
He shares that for one client:
“They have saved over 300 hours of work resolving Log4j with this dashboard, about $15,000 per customer. For just remediating Log4j for one instance, and imagine they have 30 instances – they would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Proactively securing the software supply chain is a clear value-add that pays dividends.
Reducing False Positives with Runtime Verification
With so many security tools flagging vulnerabilities, false positives waste huge amounts of security team time.
I asked Khader for tips on reducing false positives to focus on real threats.
He suggests leveraging runtime application self-protection (RASP) solutions that analyze behavior vs. just scanning code. RASP can detect false positives by verifying vulnerability exploitation potential at runtime.
"I run the CI/CD pipeline scan, and I could apply these rules to the policy and then highlight ‘Hey, do not flag this false positive in the pipeline scan,’" he explains. "There are ways to understand the false positives and there are certain solutions that look at probabilistic theory."
Khader aims to limit false positives to 5% or less through extensive use of threat modeling, red team exercises, bug bounties, and third-party penetration testing.
This helps validate internal scanner findings and guides teams to continuously improve. He also uses gamification and compliance testing labs to reinforce secure coding practices.
“We know it would happen but the whole idea is to reduce the noise and make sure that it gives you more insights about how to take this feedback and engage the teams,” Khader notes.
Using AI to Automate Security and Battle Unknown Threats
Given the surging attack surface and overwhelmed security teams, I asked Khader how organizations can harness AI to automate security processes.
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He agrees AI has huge potential to help overburdened SOC teams tackle repetitive tasks and focus on strategic priorities. Some key use cases he highlighted:
However, Khader cautions that many CISOs still struggle to understand AI's capabilities to enhance security operations:
"Not everybody has done a good job of explaining these concepts to many CISOs. They are still learning and trying to understand how it can help.”
He advises starting with foundational governance to ensure responsible and ethical AI use. This includes assessing potential risks, building guardrails, and defining guiding principles.
Once you have that foundation, Khader suggests focusing AI initially on reinforcing network security and threat detection - major pain points for defenders. The goal is to give analysts real-time protection against known and unknown threats across the full attack chain.
"If I am able to get visibility across networks as a service, and ensure governance on it, and have real-time threat visibility, that is where AI can really help,” he explains.
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Who Will Win the AI Arms Race - Attackers or Defenders?
Large language models like GPT-3 promise to be game changers for cybersecurity AI. But they also introduce new risks if deployed without proper controls.
I asked Khader whether attackers or defenders currently have the upper hand in leveraging these powerful models.
His view is attackers currently lead this AI arms race. Why?
"The defenders don't know how to make sense of these models today," he says. "They don't have teams that can integrate them into operations right now."
Attackers face no such limitations. They can rapidly weaponize AI to optimize attacks without worrying about governance or intellectual property concerns.
"The attackers - they are the ones who have the upper hand, because they know how to exploit these vulnerabilities,” Khader notes. “The defenders don't, because what they are assuming is everything will be covered."
To catch up, Khader emphasizes that defenders must invest in building out data science teams capable of responsibly leveraging large language models and generative AI.
This will enable faster threat detection, automated policy enforcement, and hyper-accurate risk scoring to keep pace with creative adversaries.
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Communicating Security’s Value: Cost Avoidance vs. Cost Center
Despite increased attacks, many organizations still view cybersecurity as a cost center rather than a strategic investment. I asked Khader how security leaders can better communicate business value.
He suggests focusing on cost avoidance - quantifying what competitors pay in breach fines and damages.
"I try to put that into the Board what the value is. I explain that we need periodic reviews of where we are in terms of posture, because one thing that we cannot say is ‘this happened 2 years ago and it won’t happen today,'" Khader says. "You cannot be complacent."
Recent ransomware attacks have been stark wake-up calls, with massive extortion payments now the norm. Khader highlights that cyber insurance premiums are surging in response to these threats.
"Just giving the malware attacks and ransomware attacks, they actually showed us that there is a need for cyber defense insurance programs. By millions of dollars industries are now looking at cyber defense insurance and how I can protect myself," he notes.
In summary, the business value of security is avoiding the crippling costs your competitors pay when defenses fail. Investing to prevent breaches pays for itself rapidly versus playing catch-up post-incident.
Key Takeaways from Khader Mohammed on the Future of Cybersecurity
Reflecting on our invigorating discussion with Khader, a few key themes really stood out:
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It's a great pleasure to have you featured in our CISO Interview,?Khader Mohammed. Thank you for sharing your insightful ideas.