How we can apply lessons from The Odyssey to the AI challenge  

COMMENTARY: Christopher Nolan's new movie The Odyssey reminds audiences why this story has endured for nearly 3,000 years.

Most people remember the monsters, with the Cyclops and Sirens fully embedded in our lore. Odysseus begins his journey in a world that keeps changing beneath him. Every island requires a different strategy. Every shortcut carries hidden consequences. Every decision balances speed with survival.

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It's a remarkable story because Odysseus never assumes he can solve the next challenge the same way as the last. The strategy that works against the Cyclops would fail against the Sirens. The preparation that saves him from the Sirens can't help him navigate between Scylla and Charybdis. Every obstacle forces him to rethink how he moves forward.

Cybersecurity leaders face a similar challenge today. AI has accelerated the speed, complexity, and consequences of defending modern enterprises in this epic journey. That has led to a common assumption that AI has fundamentally changed the nature of cyberattacks.

I don't believe it has. The same weaknesses still exist. AI has changed the economics instead. It has made it faster and cheaper for attackers to research targets, discover exposures, and exploit them at a scale that wasn't practical before.

That's where The Odyssey becomes surprisingly relevant. Each monster represents a different trap, and each demands a different response to overcome it. Security leaders face many of those same traps today.

Trap #1 – The Cyclops: Fighting today's threats with yesterday's playbook.

The Cyclops represents the instinct to meet every problem with brute force. But the Cyclops expects brute force. Odysseus wins because he recognizes the situation demands a different approach.

Cybersecurity faces a similar trap. For years, organizations responded to growing complexity by adding more visibility—more tools, more alerts, more dashboards. That approach made sense when environments were smaller and attackers moved more slowly.

AI has accelerated every stage of an attack. Attackers can now research, identify, and exploit exposures faster than ever. We can’t use the old playbook, but only faster. The playbook has to shift from reaction to adaptation. Security teams need operating models that continuously reduce exposure as environments change, rather than waiting for alerts to tell them where to act next.

Trap #2 – The Sirens: Following the loudest signal. 

The Sirens are the ultimate distractors. They want to throw us off our path. 

Security teams are surrounded by alerts, headlines, zero-days, AI announcements, and constant noise. The loudest issue isn't always the greatest source of risk. Meanwhile, known exposures continue to accumulate and are often overlooked because of the noise.

I've found that most conversations with security leaders don't begin with requests for another dashboard. They already know many of the exposures sitting in their environments. Everything that comes after actually slows them down: understanding ownership, evaluating downstream impact, coordinating across teams, and deciding what should happen first. The constant noise fragments attention and slows meaningful action.

Odysseus prepares before he reaches danger. He decides where to act before danger arrives. Security leaders increasingly need to reduce exposure before attackers exploit it rather than relying solely on reacting once something happens.

Trap #3 – Scylla and Charybdis: Waiting for the perfect path.

Odysseus had to navigate a narrow passage between two sea monsters to continue his journey. One swallows ships whole. The other seizes members of his crew. There was no route without consequences.

There’s no perfect path. Leadership often means choosing the least dangerous path rather than the perfect one. That’s enterprise security. Organizations need to balance speed and security; AI adoption and governance; automation and control; and, business enablement and risk reduction.

I've watched security teams add another tool, then another, hoping visibility would eventually translate into action. But while the visibility improved, turning it into action became harder. Every new system introduced another set of relationships, owners, and dependencies to understand. The work shifted from finding problems to coordinating their resolution.

Every decision carries the possibility of solving one problem while creating another. Progress comes from making informed decisions with enough context to move forward confidently.

Odysseus never lost sight of where he was trying to go. Every decision, every detour, and every adaptation served the same objective: getting home.

Enterprise security requires that same discipline. AI has accelerated every stage of the journey, giving attackers more opportunities to find and exploit weaknesses. That doesn't change the destination. It changes how organizations need to navigate the path.

The leaders who succeed will recognize each new trap, adapt their approach, and keep moving toward the larger objective. Success won’t come from chasing every headline or stopping every individual attack, but from continuously reducing opportunities for attackers, making informed decisions with the right context, and steadily strengthening the security posture over time.

Every monster in The Odyssey forced Odysseus to adapt. None of them changed his destination. AI shouldn't change ours either

Yair Grindlinger, ‏co-founder and CEO, Surf AI

SC Media Perspectives columns are written by a trusted community of SC Media cybersecurity subject matter experts. Each contribution has a goal of bringing a unique voice to important cybersecurity topics. Content strives to be of the highest quality, objective and non-commercial.