Generative AI is everywhere these days – in the media, at the RSA conference, in vendor announcements. It seems like everyone associated with the supply side of cybersecurity is talking about generative AI, but not the demand side. Cybersecurity pros remain skeptical and most CISOs I speak to have no immediate plans for implementation.
What’s going on here? Cynical cybersecurity professionals have heard similar “silver bullet” stories before. Remember the “IDS is dead, IPS is the new standard,” prediction in the early 2000s? How about the big push for network access control (NAC) around 2006 or the buzz around user and entity behavior analysis (UEBA) in the 2015-2016 timeframe? Heck, even recent XDR gaga has created more end-user confusion than a new robust market.
To be fair, generative AI is in its infancy and a lot of announcements referred to products that remain in beta. Given this, it’s understandable that many CISOs are taking a wait-and-see approach, but I do notice some CISOs sorting through the rhetoric and thinking about use cases where generative AI can lead to real improvement.
Generative AI’s threat intelligence potential
Allow me to add my two cents to this thought process. Generative AI has real potential to help organizations improve the efficacy and efficiency of their threat intelligence programs.
Why focus on cyber-threat intelligence (CTI)? Because more and more organizations realize they need a threat intelligence program, but establishing, managing, and gaining benefits from threat intelligence can be difficult. For example, ESG research reveals that 72% of enterprise organizations (i.e., more than 1,000 employees) find it hard to sort through CTI noise to find relevant information while 63% of firms admit they don’t have the right staff size or skills to develop an appropriate CTI program. Little wonder then that 82% of organizations assert that their CTI program is often treated as an academic exercise where intel reports don’t provide value or help guide risk mitigation decisions.
Can generative AI help here? Yes. In another research question, ESG asked 380 cybersecurity professionals to identify their top threat intelligence program challenges. Here are some of the top challenges identified along with some analysis on how generative AI could help:
