AI makes attacks faster and could reshape nation-state tactics

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 4:19

   Tell us about the nature of the capabilities of AI attacks today and then where you think it goes. Well, great. So the nature of them is, first off, we're getting a weird window in time where we're seeing them, but not at the same level you'd expect. I've seen nothing like what Armiten's already built in the wild, which is there's 25,000 agents on concert, all working together, doing really, really smart things without going on bizarre fishing trips.

2. 4:47

   Because when you respond to an AI attack, you can tell it's AI very quickly. At least I can, because I've thought about a lot of offense. I've responded to a lot of attacks in the past that were led by humans. Right. And a human goes to point A, then to point B, then to point C through their intrusion. AI does little things, like four or five differences, but one would be it'll break into point A, then laterally move to point B.

3. 5:11

   Next thing you know, it's trying to break into point A again. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I get the drone swarm, but you can probably coordinate and think a little bit better. That's where it's at today. It'll get better and cleaner. but the differences are first and foremost the scale of what ai can do dwarfs humans like in ways humans don't even get right so you have a scaling problem in that humans could always find only one path into a network yeah they had to be selective because they had to devote their limited resources to one direct path right yes and then so scale is a challenge speed ridiculous what ai does in a microsecond would take 70 humans they can't even do it it's apples to oranges and then so what was always lacking is ai creative or effective but when it comes to what we do

4. 5:57

   we don't need the fanciest model we're not trying to speak 400 languages with our models and all that kind of thing what arminen's doing on offense is we're finding vulnerabilities exploitable risk that is code that's a structured language a structured process because it's structured ai is going to be great at it right right so i really think it's already here today like the whole let's slow down the models we don't want cyber risk too late the open models are already good enough and these things are coming now it's just a matter of the minute you have anonymous availability of gpus you'll see far more criminal attacks oh interesting yeah you know what i mean but until you can attack anonymously and it's hard to do crime when people know your name yeah better if you can if you can commit a crime anonymously here's my tip for criminals

5. 6:44

   if you can commit a crime anonymously that's a lot smarter than doing it with your jersey on with your name on it. And so anyway, the difference in attacks and what we're seeing now, we are at the precipice, first inning still, of AI-led attacks coming. And I think that's just because of the cost and availability of the models is not as readily available to the criminal element as it will be in the future.

6. 7:06

   Yes, exactly. Okay. So, you, your experience in working in the security industry for 30 years, you probably saw a fair amount of nation-state attacks, right? Every day. Every day. So, talk about the differences or similarities between nation-state attacks, and I use that just to say the most sophisticated, most successful, if you will, types of attacks compared to AI today and then where you think AI can be in a couple of years.

7. 7:45

   so everything's going to change rapidly right but i can tell you nations on offense have never in my opinion they've never really been when you're hacking for espionage and for security reasons you hack with what i would call kind of a sniper round you're not spraying and praying for the most part modern nations on offense restrict their targeting and they go deep at very specific things like 30 defense contractors or dot mill when they go hard at that kind of think of it as that snipe around with ai i think becomes more like a drone swarm it becomes a little bit different in the cyber domain and i think even modern nations are thinking what will our protocol be if we want to attack this company do we swarm it and just burn tokens on it because ai is going to do a lot of things humans just wouldn't right so it's a little sloppier a little louder

8. 8:42

   but it's more effective but it's more comprehensive that's the problem you got it it's more effective probably and so there's going to be so many things a nation's got to think through right now and their whole doctrinal shift as the ai shift change comes like how does ai change what our mission is do we maybe use the cyber domain differently do we drone swarm sometimes snipe around other times how do we balance the two does it depend on risk target how surreptitious we want to be because right now ai is not a surreptitious action on offense yeah unless you've done a ton of post training you got a maybe a human in the loop really looking at are we doing smart things because if you just go hey here's a prompt hack abc.com ai is not going to do it in a surreptitious smart way and i think even if you ask it to it's still not going to until it's been really trained

9. 9:32

   and really had some human influence on it. But more generally, what you're going to see is less capable attackers, less technical, less successful, are going to appear way more successful. It's the equalizer, right? Yeah, because of the volume. When you start using models, over time, what it's going to be is, on the defensive side, we're going to say, we're being attacked by these models, but we're not sure who's behind them, those attacks.

10. 9:58

    Is it a nation? Is it a human? is it, and we'll have some clue, but attribution will get a little difficult. So that's a long-winded answer saying in the AI age, it does democratize far greater expertise for attacking victim networks. Yeah. So then that is a good segue back to Armiden. So you have talked about the defense