The Role of AI in Cybersecurity: Fighting Threats with Algorithms
Attackers use AI to scale phishing and scams. Defenders use it to spot threats in real time. How the AI arms race in cybersecurity works.
Cybersecurity has become an AI arms race. Criminals use generative AI to write convincing phishing emails, clone voices and scale scams, while defenders use machine learning to detect attacks that would slip past traditional rules.
How defenders use AI
- Anomaly detection: learning what normal network activity looks like and flagging unusual behaviour.
- Threat triage: sorting thousands of alerts so human analysts focus on the most serious.
- Phishing filters: analysing language, links and sender patterns to block malicious emails.
How attackers use it
Generative AI lowers the skill needed to write malware or tailored scam messages in flawless language. Deepfake audio has been used to impersonate executives and relatives in fraud attempts.
A national priority
Governments are responding. Australia, for example, has a national cyber security strategy with an ambition to be among the world's most cyber-secure nations by 2030, following major data breaches that affected millions of customers.
Protecting yourself
- Turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere.
- Verify unexpected requests for money through a separate channel.
- Keep devices and software updated.
AI will not replace security teams, but teams that use AI well will have a decisive edge.
