Al Cybersecurity: Getting sea legs, are we?

It's a new deck altogether and there's so much that can cause sea- sickness in these new, vast and unfamiliar oceans. What should enterprises remember before onboarding AI?

- By Pratima H

Our ancestors would travel miles with their precious gems and silks. Hence, the dacoits and pirates. Then their progenies would hide their treasures underground or tuck them inside well-built houses. Hence, the burglars. Then, there were banks and their well-bolted lockers. Hence, the robbers. Then, money changed into the form of expensive art. Hence, the conmen and their heists. And then, the very nature of our treasures became intangible—but more critical. Hence, all those malware, ransomware and DDoS attacks. With Al’s advent, what we guard, and how we guard it, will change in a massive way. None of our currencies, luxury stones, sculptures, sneakers, gates, walls, trunks, bouncers, locks or Ninjas will be relevant anymore. Because this time we do not know who we are guarding and from whom? At least, not that clearly—for now. Are we ready for the security turbulence of Al-both as a force of offence and defence—as we embrace its eye-popping breakthroughs? Is AI security really different from erstwhile cybersecurity? What will change now-the gems or the dacoits?

Both—and also the way we guard them. Let's unbox this future today. Or at least, try to.

THE CHESTS CHANGE-END EVERYTHING FOLLOWS

Al's first impact is on the very gravity and texture of data. Yesteryear’s boxes of servers, storage, disks and software are still grappling with the new face of tenants that are approaching the storage towns. Data’s speed, transience, opacity, implications and real-time fragility are going to be so different in the Al age.

All this injects a new degree of criticality in how we secure our AI information trunks.