As AI Becomes More Ever Capable, Will It End Up Helping, Or Hindering, The Hackers?

Hacking events have increasingly been in the news this year, as a range of serious ransomware and supply chain hacks have wrecked chaos on businesses and infrastructure. The latest (as of July 2021) is a supply-chain-ransomware attack against Miami-based software firm Kaseya, affecting 1500 of its customers - with the hackers (threat-actors) demanding $70 million in cryptocurrency to release the data. According to the World Economic Forum, cyber-attacks now stand side by side with climate change and natural disasters as one of the most pressing threats to humanity. No doubt ways will eventually be found to detect and pre-empt these latest styles of attack. The cybersecurity industry is defined by continual, if largely gradual, innovation - as new threats emerge, technology that protects, detects and responds to the attacks also emerges. This cat and mouse dynamic has been a fundamental trait of the industry to date: a permanently iterating relationship that supercharges the development of new technologies on both sides, where even a small edge over adversaries can pay dividends (or ransoms).