A leading security researcher has described the current approach by hackers in three words: scale, speed and sophistication.

This captures how cybercriminals and nation state actors are pursuing the business of leading an assault on government and enterprise systems today, according to Wendi Whitmore (pictured), senior vice president of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks Inc.

“When we talk about cybercriminals or nation state actors, we are really looking at the ability to exfiltrate data within hours instead of days or weeks,” Whitmore said. “What we’re seeing when it comes to cybercriminals is they are more organized than they have ever been, they understand how businesses run more effectively than they have, and they pair this with technical acumen as well as the ability to conduct social engineering attacks, which are now fueled by AI.”

Whitmore spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Dave Vellante at the Cyber Resiliency Summit, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, and they discussed the role of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity and how organizations can be better prepared for the inevitable attack. (* Disclosure below.)

Accelerated information

Expanded use of AI has benefitted both sides of the cybersecurity conflict, according to Whitmore. While the technology has helped enterprises improve resource efficiency, it has also enabled the development of more advanced threats.

“Many security operations centers throughout the world today are using AI for accelerated information,” Whitmore said. “They’ve been able to offload some of the workflows so they can focus their limited people resources on the highest criticality tasks and those that require human analytics. On the side of the attackers, we’re seeing them leverage AI today…to effectively generate new types of malware and to enhance the human side of social engineering.”

The speed, scale and sophistication of today’s attackers have placed added pressure on organizations to guard against breaches and implement the proper controls for data protection and cyber resiliency.

“You still have to do the fundamentals very well,” Whitmore said. “It’s the ability to continually identify where you’re exposed in your external attack surface. I think that’s more important now than it’s ever been.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cyber Resiliency Summit:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Cyber Resiliency Summit.” Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE