Page 20 - Cyber Defense eMagazine October 2023

staff to focus on fighting other fires. Quantum computing, a masterful AI enhancer, has revolutionized
data protection through ultra-secure encryption that classical computers simply cannot solve.

Public awareness of cybersecurity sits at the same magnitude as that of AI. Government regulations and
enterprise incentives (like huge fines for data breaches) have turned strategies like password policies
and multi-factor authentication from tech-savvy exclusivities to everyday commonalities. In the workplace,
scam simulations and phishing training crop up regularly in employees’ schedules, especially for medium
to large businesses in industries like tech, education, and healthcare.

With that being said, awareness doesn’t always turn to action. Only 31% of businesses have a formal
approach to organization-wide cyber resilience, bringing us to the bad.

Next, the Bad…

AI provides just as many headaches as it does successes. Criminals easily replicate communication
patterns to launch realistic and advanced social engineering attacks that are increasingly difficult for
security automation tools to detect, highlighting the importance of software patches and an updated tech
stack.

For example, 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day. With AI, hackers don’t even need to write
them. Automated, personalized, and targeted attacks can run at scale, and AI-powered natural language
generation creates frightening video and audio scams using deep fakes.
The lack of clarity provided by the government on AI ethics and regulation is both troubling and confusing
for businesses and users. While stringent regulations have been rolled out to outline data privacy best
practices, AI hasn’t yet received the same treatment. For example, who owns the training data? Where
does copyright come into the equation?

The blurred ethical line hasn’t quite been erased in its entirety. Legislation like GDPR in Europe has
defined best practices and legal requirements for collecting, managing, and storing personal data. But
the law doesn’t offset the increased user surveillance in the name of cybersecurity, and market activity
suggests users aren’t totally on security’s side. The global analog consumer electronics market will grow
8.56% between 2022 and 2027, reaching a valuation of $66.5 billion – a coincidence or a sign that the
tide is changing in the court of public option?

Finally, the Future…

Cloud computing meets the needs of modern businesses – it’s a lower-cost, flexible, and reliable way for
companies to function. Despite inflationary pressures and macroeconomic uncertainties, Gartner expects
worldwide spending on public cloud services to reach $600 billion this year. As cloud migration continues,
cloud security should be at the top of every business’s to-do list. The risks of unauthorized access, data
breaches, and compliance failures are enormous, so best practices like access control and encryption
will remain critical long into the future.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – October 2023 Edition 20
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