Artificial intelligence (AI) is on its way to claim your cybersecurity position. Alternatively, AI will safeguard your employment.
So, which one is it?
When it comes to all things related to security, AI, and employment, the situation is intricate.
The Impact of AI on Employment
One of the reasons for its complexity is that AI is contributing to the rise in demand for cybersecurity professionals in two main ways. First and foremost, cybercriminals are utilizing AI to bypass security measures, elevating the overall threat of data breaches. Perpetrators are increasingly harnessing AI-based tools for enhanced reconnaissance and target profiling. This allows for more advanced tactics in social engineering, including deepfake impersonation and large-scale disinformation campaigns. Similarly, it aids in evading detection systems through adversarial AI methods. Moreover, AI aids attackers in automating vulnerability scanning, exploitation, and data exfiltration processes, thereby making sophisticated cyber attacks more accessible to less experienced individuals, potentially amplifying the magnitude and consequences of breaches.
Furthermore, the utilization of AI broadens the attack surface at organizations and expands the variety of vectors that attackers can exploit. According to IBM’s 2024 Cost Of A Data Breach Report, “The ongoing trend of adopting gen AI across nearly every department in the organization is likely to bring about unprecedented risks, putting additional stress on cybersecurity teams.” The report highlights that the swift adoption of generative AI is anticipated to escalate the workload and pressure on cybersecurity teams, potentially aggravating staff shortages.
Additionally, “AI necessitates vast amounts of data for both model training and informing a model’s output at inference time (through a method known as Retrieval Augmented Generation [RAG]),” as stated by Sam Hector, Senior Strategy Leader at IBM Security. “The proliferation of data across multiple environments to feed AI increases the complexity of its protection, requiring more specialized skills, thus boosting job demand.”
The integration of AI among cybercriminals, cybersecurity experts, and professionals of diverse backgrounds is giving rise to new specialized fields within cybersecurity.
So, does AI create job opportunities in cybersecurity? Well, not so fast.
Explore the 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report
The Role of AI in Job Displacement
As generative AI becomes integrated into cybersecurity tools, expanding its capabilities as an informational chatbot, development tool, and more, the need for individuals to perform a wide range of tasks decreases.
At its core, AI is increasingly proficient in automating routine activities, like log analysis, initial threat identification, vulnerability scanning, and basic incident handling.
“Although the requirement for traditional entry-level tasks will diminish due to automation and AI, the skills we demand will undergo a fundamental shift,” stated Hector. “Humans will be more focused on strategy, analytics, and enhancing programs. This shift will necessitate the continuous development of skills among existing staff to adapt their roles to the evolving capabilities of AI.”
“Human judgment continues to play a crucial role in the cybersecurity process, particularly in complex and high-pressure situations such as breach response and when ethical and regulatory concerns are involved,” he mentioned.
Generative AI tools can supplement human expertise with readily available information. According to Gartner, by 2028, “the adoption of GenAI is expected to bridge the skills gap, eliminating the need for specialized education in 50% of entry-level cybersecurity roles.”
AI is anticipated to significantly reduce the requirement for manual code reviews to identify vulnerabilities, as it becomes more adept at conducting this process automatically and providing potential solutions.
AI tools will partly automate penetration testing, reducing the demand for lower-level or entry-level penetration testers.
AI-driven threat intelligence is already proving to be a great asset to security teams. AI can analyze vast volumes of data at a much faster pace than humans, potentially decreasing the need for threat intelligence analysts.
AI is also proficient in monitoring, detecting, and flagging suspicious user behavior, subsequently passing on identified user sessions to individuals.
The Uncertain Future of Jobs
A decade ago, experts were divided regarding whether AI would generate or eliminate cybersecurity roles in the subsequent decade.
Ironically, that divided, varied, and indistinct forecast turned out to be correct.
What wasn’t anticipated a decade ago was the substantial impact of the generative AI revolution on both ends of the spectrum.
The skills that cybersecurity professionals require are transitioning towards data scientists and those with expertise in AI, alongside the creation of interdisciplinary roles to bridge the gap among cybersecurity, AI, and data science, as per Hector. Furthermore, new challenges in regulatory and compliance have emerged due to the rapid advancement of AI.
It is evident that AI is diminishing the necessity for cybersecurity professionals to handle numerous tasks that can be automated. AI is also significantly enhancing the abilities of staff by enabling them to accomplish much more work in a shorter timeframe compared to being without AI. However, it is also markedly elevating the complexity of cybersecurity as a whole.
The expanding attack surface, the escalating costs associated with data breaches, and cybercriminals’ utilization of AI are significantly heightening the demand for cybersecurity overall. New specialized job roles are emerging, including AI cybersecurity specialists and cybersecurity data scientists.
While AI is involved in threat detection, log analysis, vulnerability assessments, among other tasks, the human skill set will continue to shift towards strategy, planning, issue resolution, and decision-making. It is possible that advanced architectural expertise will become more valuable than a basic understanding of programs, code, and scripting, according to Hector. The focus of skills demand will shift towards data security and data governance to support the increasing responsibility of feeding AI.
The skills gap persists, and opportunities in the cybersecurity sector are plentiful and expanding. Although AI is a potent and increasingly indispensable tool, human expertise, skills, and judgement remain essential.
The article Is AI saving jobs… or taking them? first appeared on Security Intelligence.