AI, cybersecurity investments and identity take center stage at RSA 2024

Worries about AI-based attacks are also driving increased security adoption in organizations. In one presentation, an Akamai senior vice president noted that his company had seen a 48% increase in web attacks over the previous year, with nearly 30% targeting organizations’ APIs.

While organizations increasingly use AI and machine learning to detect and prevent cyber threats in real-time, cyber thieves use combative AI tools to create deepfakes, copy user access passwords, and use other fraudulent tactics to bypass security measures. Several discussions focused on the need for CISOs, CTOs, and CIOs to adopt AI-driven cybersecurity solutions or risk being outmaneuvered by cyber criminals who are already using these tech tools to launch attacks, which echoed the focus of my last column, The AI cat and mouse game has begun.

Another area of focus was the SOC. AI-based assaults are expected to drive a higher frequency of attacks. Given that attacks will be on the rise and AI will make it easier to do more sophisticated attacks, the professionals inside an enterprise security operations center will be inundated with alerts. How do you filter through that in an automated and cost-effective way, especially since talent is scarce? SOC incident automation, analysis, and response are a hugely promising and necessary area ripe for innovation.

Focus on identity management

Identity management emerged as a predominant theme, underscoring ongoing challenges within the security industry following incidents like the Okta breach and recent vulnerabilities in password reset MFA. Clearly, there are innovations still left to be done within the identity market.

AI identity solutions designed to combat AI-generated deepfakes and structure user access management piqued attendees’ interest. These solutions significantly enhance organizations’ identity management frameworks by analyzing biometric data (face, voice, etc.) for far more accurate verification, and CISOs are keen to understand and implement this. Another area CISOs were interested in was managing the identities of third-party vendor relationships, which have seen a great number of cyber-attacks in recent months.

AI efficiency key in battling cybersecurity threats

The range of exhibitors and panel sessions at the RSA conference provided insight into the innovation happening across the board and how AI and machine learning are being used more widely to detect and prevent cyber threats. Generative AI is increasingly being implemented by vendors to comply with the requirements and demands of top-line enterprises. The emergence of ‘all-in-one’ cybersecurity platforms suggests a promising trend that could greatly help CISOs in the coming years.