Ethan Searle, business development director, LanDynamix.
The expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) into all areas of business, technology and life generally, is advancing at an exponential pace, which has great benefits to offer but at what cost?
While AI fuels innovation and adoption, this development is a double-edged sword because it also amplifies the risks around security, ethics, sustainability and more.
According to Gartner, by 2027, more than 40% of AI-related data breaches will be caused by the improper use of generative AI (GenAI) across borders. The research guru goes on to explain that the lack of consistent global AI standards forces enterprises to develop region-specific strategies, limiting AI scalability and benefits.
So, there is no question that AI is playing a major role in how quickly we consume technology and there are various reasons behind this, including the need to accelerate product development.
AI speeds up research, prototyping and testing by automating tasks that once took months or years; for example, in diverse areas such as drug discovery, chip design, software coding. Faster development cycles mean new technologies hit the market more quickly, and consumers adopt them sooner.
Rapid rollouts often outpace security hardening, while regulatory ambiguity leads to compliance violations and vulnerabilities with harsh financial consequences.
Consumer demand for personalisation is also shaping the role AI plays in, for example, the retail sector, with personalisation engines, predictive analytics, and GenAI tailored content offering customers the products and services they want at a rapid pace.
When people can simply ‘ask’ technology to do things, more are likely to use it, and more often, thus increasing speed of consumption. AI accelerates both the supply and demand for technology which is why we’re consuming tech at an unprecedented speed.
What are the security risks?
Rapid rollouts often outpace security hardening, while regulatory ambiguity leads to compliance violations and vulnerabilities with harsh financial consequences. These vulnerabilities can lead to data breaches and subsequent erosion of market trust and reputational damage. The latter is the biggest caveat − companies may survive a ransomware payout or a compliance fine but few survive the stigma of lost customer trust.
In a nutshell, faster deployment means less time to test for bias, misuse, or unintended consequences.
Gartner highlights that the swift adoption of GenAI technologies by end-users has outpaced the development of data governance and security measures, raising concerns about data localisation due to the centralised computing power required to support these technologies.
While these tools can be used for approved business applications, they pose security risks if sensitive prompts are sent to AI tools and APIs hosted in unknown locations.
Quite simply, legislative governance frameworks cannot keep pace with the speed of change but in that regard, Gartner predicts by 2027, AI governance will become a requirement of all sovereign AI laws and regulations worldwide.
Vendor and ecosystem lock-in
Faster cycles encourage reliance on a few dominant vendors. Vendors have been quick to build mechanisms to automate the identification of assets plus consolidation of telemetry and then to use AI to build a picture, create workflows and even solve security issues for businesses.
There are multiple global research references that endorse the urgency of implementing a comprehensive and robust cyber security plan that covers all the bases.
While cost may have been considered the main barrier to achieving this in the past, the good news today for companies trying to mitigate the growing risk is that the barriers to entry have dropped for full-service managed security services, making them accessible even to SMEs. Organisations that chase speed without governance risk eroding value instead of creating it.
We haven’t even touched on the subject of the use of AI by cyber criminals who have clearly become significantly more sophisticated thanks to the use of AI in their attacks.
Businesses are challenged to build cyber resilience in the face of limited resources and a shortage of expert cyber skills − it’s simply not possible to upskill employees at the same pace as technology advances.
Managed security services
All of the foregoing piles on the strong case for businesses to consider managed security services. In the absence of in-house security personnel and comprehensive multi-layered security solutions, managed security services offer the solution.
Organisations, of all sizes, must ensure they have access to the full spectrum of security solutions and services that are crucial to their operation if they are to stay ahead of the attacker’s next move, but before they make it.
Automation and AI are not only aiding the bad guys to get into network and systems, they are also a powerful enabler of MSPs that can now offer more efficient solutions at a lower price.
Economies of scale have brought down the pricing of these solutions, so check it out before making a decision based on conjecture and not facts.
For example, the price tag of a fully-fledged security operations centre piece of software has over the past three years alone, dropped by 50%. This puts resilience within reach of more businesses at a time when they need it most.
