1. Tell us about your role at Darktrace?
As the Director of Strategic Threat, I focus on current and emerging threats from nation state actors and non-nation state actors, as well as our Immune System technology’s capability to detect, investigate, and disrupt those attacks.
2. Can you tell us about your journey in this industry?
Security has always been present in my professional interests and career. Prior to joining Darktrace in June 2019, I spent 15 years at the Central Intelligence Agency developing global cyber operations and technical strategies. I had the privilege of leading cyber efforts with various US Intelligence Community elements and global partners, as well as advising senior leaders on cyber strategy. It was during my early days at the CIA that I started to gravitate towards mission areas that allowed me to run teams focused on developing and deploying emerging technologies, specifically around cyber and big data, to maximize mission impact. I wouldn’t trade a moment of my CIA time for anything, the men and women who serve there are incredible, dedicated Americans. As I pivoted to the private sector, I was drawn to Darktrace’s innovation within artificial intelligence and machine learning as applied to the critical cybersecurity mission, coupled with the opportunity to work closely with an amazing group of subject matter experts.
3. How do you think AI is impacting cyber threat activities?
Attackers are moving towards the use of AI. It will be on both sides of cyber warfare. Moving forward, it will be machine versus machine. Darktrace employs AI to provide the most granular analysis, deepest understanding, and most complete visibility into digital environments, super charging human teams with autonomous capabilities to better investigate and fight threats. AI driven actions in autonomous response stops attacks in the earliest instance—in mere seconds. As for cyber criminals, elements of AI and machine learning are increasingly being used to scale-up and advance attacks However, the use of AI for malicious objectives is more nascent, but once it becomes more mature, we will be seeing fully realized Offensive AI attacks, the signatures of which will be impossible to predict.
4. How according to you are defense models beings empowered by advanced ML?
As noted in question 3,
artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing the positions of strength from the attacker to the defender and has become crucial in protecting IT and OT infrastructure at large.
It is worth noting that it will depend how the AI is deployed.
In applying AI for defense, the position of strength is in understanding normal business and digital operations and then enforcing normal. Not as an understanding of normal as a single snapshot, baseline or fingerprint, but rather a dynamic, real-time situational awareness that understands the difference in changes in normal, even extreme ones such as the recent move by companies to work from home.
I have seen other AI applications focused on predicting the threat actor or attack, this is much more problematic and with current AI limitations will never have the same levels of consistency and certainty than AI is having in understanding and enforcing what is normal for a companies or governments digital pattern of life.
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