Rob Joyce, who served as President Donald Trump's chief cyber adviser during his first term, said artificial intelligence uncovering software flaws is only part of the challenge, Cybersecurity Dive reports.
At Google's Cyber Defense Summit, Joyce cautioned cybersecurity professionals to temper their optimism in AI's vulnerability detection abilities, as patching capability remains outpaced. He also raised alarms about how companies are embedding AI agents into sensitive systems such as email platforms and internal knowledge bases.
While large companies like Google might be equipped to quickly patch vulnerabilities uncovered by AI, much of today's technology is made up of outdated or unsupported systems or lacks the personnel needed to apply patches, according to Joyce.
"There's examples recently of AI being exploited inside a company where [hackers] get access inside the systems of the company, but then they're using the AI agents to search for the things that would be most useful in a ransomware attack or an extortion attack," he said in a keynote discussion with Mandiant chief analyst John Hultquist.
Joyce previously led the National Security Agency's Cybersecurity Directorate and ran its elite Tailored Access Operations hacking group.
At Google's Cyber Defense Summit, Joyce cautioned cybersecurity professionals to temper their optimism in AI's vulnerability detection abilities, as patching capability remains outpaced. He also raised alarms about how companies are embedding AI agents into sensitive systems such as email platforms and internal knowledge bases.
While large companies like Google might be equipped to quickly patch vulnerabilities uncovered by AI, much of today's technology is made up of outdated or unsupported systems or lacks the personnel needed to apply patches, according to Joyce.
"There's examples recently of AI being exploited inside a company where [hackers] get access inside the systems of the company, but then they're using the AI agents to search for the things that would be most useful in a ransomware attack or an extortion attack," he said in a keynote discussion with Mandiant chief analyst John Hultquist.
Joyce previously led the National Security Agency's Cybersecurity Directorate and ran its elite Tailored Access Operations hacking group.
