The role of AI in cybersecurity: opportunity or emerging threat?

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT introduce new attack surfaces for cybercriminals, creating challenges for organizations trying to protect their digital environments, said Hitesh Sheth, CEO of Vectra.

See also: Effective communication is the key to successful cybersecurity

The San Jose, Calif.-based company has invested in detection and response capabilities to protect against abuse of large language models, while leveraging AI to more effectively identify threats and increase the overall effectiveness of security measures. In recent years, Vectra has expanded its protection beyond the network to cover attack surfaces including the public cloud and SaaS applications (see: Vectra CEO on How to Reduce the Attack Surface of SaaS and Identities).

“We see next-gen AI as a tremendous productivity opportunity,” Sheth said. “But it’s also going to introduce a whole new vector for attackers to exploit. Our mission is to be the company that takes the same detection responsibility that we have for other attack surfaces that we already serve, but also starts to protect customers from LLM abuse.”

In this interview with Information Security Media Group, Sheth also discussed:

• The role of AI in expanding detection capabilities across different platforms;
• How partnerships with companies like CrowdStrike improve security offerings;
• The importance of MDR services in strengthening hybrid enterprise defenses.

Prior to joining Vectra AI in 2012, Sheth served for three years as COO at Aruba Networks. He joins Aruba from Juniper Networks, where he served as executive vice president and general manager of the switching business and, prior to that, as senior vice president of the Service Layer Technologies group, which included security. Prior to Juniper, Sheth held leadership roles for seven years at Cisco.