Safety, Security, Privacy & Prompts: Cyber Resilience in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

An NCC Group Whitepaper

27 September 2023

By NCC Group

What does AI mean for cyber security?

Take this question and replace cyber security with any given subject. There's no region or sector that hasn't discussed the great artificial intelligence question at length in board meetings, team briefings and heated private conversations.

In this field, though, there's not so much a sense of shock or panic as there is yet another solemn recognition of a looming threat- a new security challenge to rise to.

NCC Group has been researching and incorporating elements of artificial intelligence and machine learning into our products and services for years now but understands that 2023 has been a catalyst year for widespread adoption of new tools and systems. Consumer-facing technology underpinned by large-language models (LLMs) has brought generative AI to the mainstream. Open AI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, Microsoft's Bing Creator, and many other competitors are already incredibly powerful commercial examples, and they are still in relatively nascent stages.

Of course, AI is a much broader topic, spanning application domains such as autonomous vehicles, autonomous and intelligent stock trading, facial recognition, surveillance, and cyber security detection and response- to name but a few. The pervasiveness of AI presents many opportunities to improve society in a myriad of ways. Simultaneously, these new capabilities introduce new risks and challenges in their safe, secure and ethical use.

NCC Group has released this whitepaper to assist those wishing to better understand how AI applies to cyber security. The paper provides high-level summaries of how AI can be used by both cyber professionals and adversaries, the risks AI systems are exposed to, safety, privacy and ethics concerns and how the regulatory landscape is evolving to meet these challenges.

For the interested reader, we have also included sections on AI terminology and technologies and a summary of the research NCC Group has published in this space. We believe this information will be useful to security professionals and senior leaders seeking an introduction to the field of AI and cyber security, helping to understand the emerging risks and threats in this domain and how they might affect organisations. We hope the paper is also useful to developers looking to understand cyber security use cases for AI.

AI in cyber security

"The trajectory of AI development has been nothing short of meteoric in recent years; permeating every sector and systematically changing business operations and decision-making processes...Organisations and policy makers have the taxing task of harnessing the transformative potential of AI, while at the same time needing to grapple with the ever-evolving threat landscape that it presents.

Ensuring the safety and security of people, process and technology in an AI-augmented world demands vigilance, and a commitment to forward-thinking strategies that will require continuous adaptation. This whitepaper seeks to introduce the topic of AI’s reinvention of cyber security, setting a baseline of understanding for some of the key AI concepts, threats and opportunities to business decision makers and policy makers, to support their thinking and strategies in this fast-paced, exciting new technological era."

Siân John Chief Technology Officer, NCC Group

What you'll learn:

In this whitepaper,

  • We provide an overview of the technologies underpinning AI, describe in further detail the general positive and negative AI use cases and impacts before diving into specific cyber security use cases for AI.
  • We then cover cyber threats to AI-based systems and present a view on the emerging global AI regulatory environment and what this means for organisations seeking to leverage AI.
  • We conclude with recommendations for safe, secure, and compliant use of AI.

You'll gain knowledge from leading resources around the world, including our own primary research, and leave with a better understanding of the risks and benefits for your organization. Find critical insights into the evolving world of artificial intelligence security from offensive and defensive perspectives. As regulations and legislation are introduced by governments around the world, our experts keep you updated on the latest news.

From prompts to privacy, security to safety- it's time to set a strategy for the AI era.

Build cyber resilience for the future.

We've made this whitepaper publicly available because we believe that's just another step towards making the world safer and more secure. Download it in full below and reach out to one of our experts to learn more about what NCC Group is doing to address the safety, security, and ethics of AI and cyber security.

NCC Group

NCC Group

NCC Group exists to make the world safer and more secure.

As global experts in cyber security and risk mitigation, NCC Group is trusted by over 14,000 customers worldwide to protect their most critical assets from the ever-changing threat landscape.

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