Live from HyperConnect 2023 | Drafting Compliance Ep. 21

Although motivations like that mean any organization using AI could be a victim, Kayne McGladrey, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a nonprofit professional association, and field CISO at Hyperproof, says he expects hackers will be more likely to target the tech companies making and training AI systems.

But CISOs shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief, McGladrey says, as their organizations could be impacted by those attacks if they are using the vendor-supplied corrupted AI systems.

The back-to-school sales circulars are arriving, a reminder that fall is on its way. For most organizations, fall also brings an annual budgetary exercise for which many mid-level managers and executives will be unprepared.

“Bob Gourley emphasized that despite the dark topic of cyberthreats, we all leave with optimism. Carol Tang addressed the importance of continuous learning as part of a business leader’s proactive approach to mitigating risk and providing safety for customers. Kayne McGladrey emphasized the dual responsibility of today’s corporate decision makers with regard to cybersecurity: understand the complexity but act with transparency and specificity. It’s important to integrate cybersecurity awareness into the fabric of the organization, not sequester cybertrust solely within the domain of technology.”

Cultural change takes time and is a journey, not a destination. Senior leaders, managers, and individual contributors all have a role and responsibility in ensuring that manufacturing companies stay safe from cybersecurity risks. Elevating cyber risks to the same level as safety risks will help companies to comprehensively understand and manage their risks now and in the coming years.

“Have a KPI about value that came out of your threat intelligence feed. Did it actually cause you to do something differently? Were your analysts able to act on this, or was it just another thing that they had to go look at? Because when you think of time as being our chief enemy, if it’s sucking time and not producing value, why do you keep it? It’s a data feed, ultimately. At the end of the day, you have to contextualize it in terms of your organization. Threat actors tend to vary in terms of behavior in their TTPs. And consequently, you need to really tailor your threat intelligence. And if you’re not getting that tailored information, drop it.”

Schools also contend with risk born of constant user shifts in the student population. This puts schools in an unusual and unenviable position, Kayne McGladrey, field CISO at Hyperproof, said via email. “Being able to apply real-time policies based on user and device behavior via zero-trust networking becomes critical in this environment,” McGladrey said. Absent these tools, strategies and adequate staff, schools will remain a frequent target for cybercriminals. They could also, at the very least, give schools the confidence needed to refuse ransom demands.