The Next Revolution in AI Cybersecurity: An Interview with Art Ocain

?? Art Ocain is a cybersecurity rockstar. As a CISO and Head of Strategic Alliances and Incident Response at cyber operations company Airiam , he is on the frontlines defending organizations against ransomware attacks. I had the privilege of interviewing Art to get his unique perspective on the cyber landscape and the future of AI security. ??

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In this wide-ranging interview, Art drops ?? after ??, sharing his hands-on experience responding to real-world cyber attacks and ransomware. He offers a rare glimpse into the tactics and tradecraft cyber criminals use in the wild.

He explains with incredible clarity and foresight how artificial intelligence is set to revolutionize cybersecurity on both the defender and attacker side. ??

Here are some of the key insights and takeaways from our conversation:

Supply Chain Attacks are a Growing but Still Limited Threat

?? Supply chain attacks like SolarWinds and Log4j grab headlines and while supply chain attacks present a huge potential blast radius, traditional tactics like phishing remain the bread and butter for ransomware initial access. Securing the supply chain is crucial, but Art cautions against seeing it as a panacea:

"Saying that you're really relying on that risk assessment is really foolish at this point. So the strategy that I prefer is really kind of taking more of a zero trust approach to it and segmenting everything off when possible"

AI is Leveling Up Phishing and Social Engineering

?? Today's powerful AI like GPT-3 makes it easy for attackers to generate hyper-targeted, context-aware phishing lures and social engineering pretexting. This is drastically increasing the effectiveness of attacks, per Art:

"Whereas before large language models, it was somewhat easy to tell, Okay? I'm being screwed with by a thread actor. I'm able to tell that this is fishy, There's something wrong with these automation platforms the person doesn't need to speak any English there...They don't need to know what they're doing... they can use these systems to communicate effectively with the victim and so I feel like it puts us that extreme disadvantage right now."

Defenders are struggling to keep up with the scale and sophistication. While AI and automation can help, we still rely heavily on manual review.

"I have to respond with people. I can't respond with automation yet and, when I'm from a sim and sore perspective...that volume is just going to go through the roof as a result of this. And I've already been seeing kind of the the outputs of those and they're very convincing campaigns that they're running"

This asymmetry gives attackers the edge, for now.

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AI Will Also Be a Game Changer for Defenders

???? While AI amplifies threats, Art is bullish on its potential to transform defense. He envisions AI managing the full threat lifecycle - from detection to automated response:

"I think that if we have a sim and sore platform gathering artifacts and gathering information from a network then if we are using machine learning to kind of determine what's really a threat and what's not against threat to use etc. And then using Llms to interface with them and say, Okay, show me the current threats today"

And even executing the optimal response playbooks:

"Where I'm going to take these response actions because I understand the context of the organization and I know that I need to shut off these servers or these clusters, shut off this access. I need to disable these user's whatever, that has those playbook actions but also understands the context of the organization so that it knows the company will never come back from this if I shut down this system"

This could be the holy grail allowing defenders to finally gain advantage. Though Art notes the most high-risk, irreversible decisions would still need human oversight.

Rethinking Cybersecurity as a Business Value

?? Beyond technology, Art emphasizes the critical need to reframe cybersecurity internally and externally as a business value-driver rather than a cost center.

We must become strategic partners enabling business growth, not just insurance policies against risk:

"I think we're rephrasing. Our whole industry and art all of our technology and what we're doing. As adding value to an organization, is really going to be pivotal right now. we look like it cost center right now. We're constantly asking the board for more money and more budget to do stuff that really looks like it's not adding any value to the company."

Architecting systems resilient to threats by design will also shift the narrative:

"Start thinking about designing our solutions in a way that we can kill off a piece of it if it's under attack, and respawn it redeploy it, etc. So that we can respond automatically to those things...As long as we can build security into everything we do. the value is embedded in everything we do."

This is music to the ears of us at CyberFame.io . We are firm believers in “shifting left” and making security intrinsic to infrastructure.

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Cyberfame - Next-Gen AI Security Built-In

?? Which brings us to Cyberfame. Our artificial intelligence security meshes seamlessly into the software ecosystem, providing baked-in protection.

Rather than layering on heavy security controls, we take a data-driven approach to identifying and automatically mitigating vulnerabilities and threats before they happen.

Our knowledge of graph technology and AI gives 360-degree visibility across the entire web of software dependencies and components. We prioritize risks with surgical precision based on potential blast radius.

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And we enable all of this through an intuitive UI - bringing AI security to practitioners of any skill level. Enhancing human capability rather than replacing it.

This resonates strongly with Art's insights about the future of the industry. We firmly believe companies need to re-architect systems with security and resilience as a core design principle.

AI will be crucial in making this a reality by automating rote tasks and enhancing defenders' expertise. Allowing precious human capital to focus on high-value strategic initiatives rather than never-ending tactical "fire drills".

Cyberfame delivers on this vision today. Schedule a demo to see our AI security in action and experience the future for yourself.

Key Takeaways:

• Supply chain attacks have the potential for outsized impact but remain relatively rare vs. other intrusion vectors
• AI is massively amplifying phishing/social engineering volume and sophistication, putting defenders at a disadvantage
• Automated AI defense will be critical to relieving overwhelmed defenders and scaling protection
• We must reframe cybersecurity internally and externally as a strategic business enabler rather than a tactical cost center
• Architecting systems resilient-by-design will embed security intrinsically rather than layering it on as an afterthought
• Cyberfame's AI approach delivers baked-in security aligned with the future direction Art describes

What did you take away from Art's insights? What role do you see AI playing in the future of cybersecurity? Share your key takeaways in the comments!

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