Security News > 2023 > August > Black Hat USA 2023 Panel: Used Correctly, Generative AI is a Boon for Cybersecurity

At the Black Hat kickoff keynote on Wednesday, Jeff Moss, the founder of Black Hat, focused on the security implications of AI before introducing the main speaker, Maria Markstedter, CEO and founder of Azeria Labs.

Securing AI was also a key theme during a panel at Black Hat a day earlier: Cybersecurity in the Age of AI, hosted by security firm Barracuda.

The event detailed several other pressing topics, including how generative AI is reshaping the world and the cyber landscape, the potential benefits and risks associated with the democratization of AI, how the relentless pace of AI development will affect our ability to navigate and regulate tech, and how security players can evolve with generative AI to the advantage of defenders.

While the jury is still out on whether attackers will benefit from generative AI more than defenders, the endemic shortage of cybersecurity personnel presents an opportunity for AI to close that gap and automate tasks that might provide an advantage to the defender, noted Michael Daniel, president and CEO of Cyber Threat Alliance and former cyber czar for the Obama administration.

Using AI to do cybersecurity for AI. The panelists also mulled over how security teams practice cybersecurity for the AI itself - how do you do security for a large language model?

When the panelists were queried about the benefits of generative AI and the positive outcomes it can generate, Fleming Shi, CTO of Barracuda, said AI models have the potential to make just-in-time training viable using generative AI. "And with the right prompts, the right type of data to make sure you can make it personalized, training can be more easily implemented and more interactive," Shi said, rhetorically asking whether anyone enjoys cybersecurity training.

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https://www.techrepublic.com/article/black-hat-2023-generative-ai-panel/