The rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape has made it challenging for government agencies to keep pace with new attacks, especially as threat actors begin to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make their attacks more effective. To combat this, many federal agencies are also turning to AI to improve their security operations. By integrating defensive and offensive strategies to combat the threats, agencies can build a cybersecurity playbook that empowers them to keep up with emerging threats.
Defensive Strategy
In a recent interview with Federal News Network, Dean Irwin, Senior Director of Cybersecurity at Maximus, discussed how agencies can defend themselves against AI-powered cyberattacks. “Cybersecurity is changing, and a big introduction is what’s happening in AI,” Irwin said. “I see that more as an offensive concern for AI, more than the defensive side. Threat actors are becoming very sophisticated.”
Ninety percent of cyberattacks begin with phishing. To combat this, many agencies have introduced training to help employees better recognize phishing attempts to reduce potential data breaches. However, threat actors have advanced their techniques by using AI to craft phishing emails that are almost indiscernible from a legitimate email.
To identify whether an email is legitimate, Irwin recommends that agencies look at who sent the email. If the email is spam, security can use this data to prevent further phishing attempts. However, some more advanced targeting attacks, like spear phishing or whaling require agencies to use cyber threat intelligence to predict attacks to better mitigate risks.
Offensive Strategy
It’s important that agencies not only defend against AI-powered cyberattacks, but also use it offensively to improve security operations. Agencies can pair AI with things like Zero Trust architecture or attack surface management to improve accuracy and effectiveness. In an interview with Federal News Network, Michael Sieber, Senior Director of Cybersecurity at Maximus, explained how AI can be used to expand resources, improve security operations, and stay ahead of threats.
“If you look at a security operations center, there’s so much information for them to track that it’s impossible for them to ingest data manually,” Sieber said. “You have to take advantage of tools and make sure that those tools are giving you a common operating picture so that you can understand what your network looks like, where your weaknesses are and mitigate any vulnerabilities … [AI] can help you digest a lot of that data and then get rid of the noise, so you can clearly understand what the threats are and pay attention to the things that really matter.”
With the pace at which the cyber threat environment is changing, attempting to solve new challenges with old technology is a certain path to a breach. By understanding how AI is changing the very nature of attacks and the opportunities it creates in defensive strategies, agencies can build a new cybersecurity playbook that ensures they are ready for whatever comes next.
To learn more strategies to add to your agency’s cybersecurity playbook, watch the video below.