According to Google Cloud’s Nick Godfrey, generative AI capabilities appear to be giving defenders an edge over attackers.

The advent of new cybersecurity capabilities powered by generative AI appears to be giving defenders an edge over attackers, Google Cloud’s Nick Godfrey told CRN.
Although the situation may not last long, the current gains suggest that cybersecurity teams would be wise to double down on GenAI capabilities so they can get the most out of it, said senior director of the office of the CISO at Google Cloud and former global co-founder of GenAI. Godfrey said. -CISO at Goldman Sachs.
[Related: 5 Emerging GenAI Security Threats In 2024]
According to Godfrey, GenAI has major implications for what is known as the “defender’s dilemma” – the notion that cyberdefense teams are expected to be 100 percent successful, while attackers are expected to succeed only once to have an impact. Does matter.
Thanks to newly available GenAI-powered capabilities for security, he said, “I think that right now, we have an opportunity to help solve the defender’s dilemma.”
Cybersecurity industry vendors have lauded GenAI’s ability to enable new functionality across many security tool categories, though the technology is perhaps making the biggest difference in the area of ​​security operations.
For Google Cloud, for example, GenAI’s main focus is on using capabilities to help security operations analysts improve their decision making and automate more of routine tasks, according to Godfrey.
“Helping to accelerate security operations, reduce the scale and labor associated with them is a big driver for us,” he said.
Also, threat actors are believed to be making heavy use of GenAI tools to enhance their phishing and social engineering attacks as well as deepfake scams, but there is not much evidence that attackers are using more sophisticated technology. Have moved towards uses. ,
In contrast, “the use of AI by defenders is probably advancing at a faster pace,” Godfrey said.
The challenge for Google Cloud and all CISOs is, “How do we double this capacity?” He said. “How do we really understand where it can be used and how it can enhance and enhance the capability of existing teams while we still have that window?”
For IT consulting giant Accenture, No. 1 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2024, the opportunity is to seize Introduction A set of cybersecurity services with new capabilities powered by GenAI.
For example, Accenture said last week that it is deploying GenAI to enhance a number of services, including its managed detection and response (MDR) offering. Paolo Dal Sin, global head of Accenture Security, said the company’s security teams are leveraging an AI assistant that can better collect and analyze threat intelligence, ultimately significantly improving risk correlation.
Using these capabilities, he said, “there has been a material improvement in the effectiveness” of providing MDR to customers.
Ultimately, while concerns about the use of AI by attackers have been widespread, “we strongly believe that GenAI will help defenders more than attackers,” Del Sinn said. “And so we thought that as Accenture, we needed to invest in showing a different approach and looking at GenAI as an opportunity for security.”