From foreign government-backed ‘hacktivists’ to the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence, National Security Agency (NSA) Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce highlighted three areas of focus in cybersecurity during the event. 10th International Conference on Cybersecurityheld at Fordham on January 9.
Better diffusion of the English language
The use of artificial intelligence is both an advantage and a disadvantage for law enforcement, Joyce said.
“One of the first things bad actors do is simply increase their awareness in English (using AI), whether it’s phishing emails or something more elaborate” , did he declare. “The second thing we’re starting to see is that… less skilled people are using artificial intelligence to guide their hacking operations to make them better at the technical side of a hack.”
But Joyce said that “in the short term,” AI is “absolutely a benefit to defense” as law enforcement officials use AI to “better detect malicious activity.”
For example, he said the NSA has observed Chinese officials attempting to disrupt critical infrastructure, such as pipelines and transportation systems, in the United States.
“They don’t use traditional malware, so there aren’t the things that antivirus flags,” Joyce said.
Instead, he said they are “using loopholes” in a system’s design to take over or create accounts that appear authorized.
“But machine learning AI helps us surface these activities, because these accounts don’t behave like normal business operators,” Joyce said.
The role of “hacktivists” in the Israel-Hamas conflict
Joyce said one of the biggest challenges for cybersecurity leaders is understanding who is carrying out cyberattacks and why. For example, as cyber officials see an increase in the number of “hacktivists” or hacker activists, they see more and more foreign governments supporting and impersonating them.
“The conflict between Israel and Hamas is happening right now: there’s a tremendous amount of hacktivist activity, and we’re seeing it on both sides of the equation,” Joyce said. “But the interesting thing about all of this is that nation states are increasingly hiding their activities under the thin veil of activist activities: they will go ahead and attack a nation state , critical infrastructure, an army or a military system. strategic target, and trying to do it in a way that resembles this wave of activist activity. This is another area where we need intelligence insight into what is really behind the curtain, because not everything is what it seems. »
Unclassified information: “A radical change”
Joyce said one of the biggest “marine” and “cultural” changes at the NSA is the sharing of classified information with the private sector.
“We take our sensitive intelligence and bring it down to unclassified levels that work with industry,” Joyce said. ” For what ? Because there may be one or two people in a company who have the authority to obtain this information, but chances are those who can do something about it are the ones who, in reality, will not have authorization.
Joyce said the department decided to change its position on intelligence sharing in part because “what we know is not as sensitive as how we know it” and because “knowing something doesn’t matter.” It really doesn’t matter if you don’t do anything.” on this subject; industry is the first to be able to do something.
