AI has changed the tempo and economics of cyberattacks
One of AI’s biggest advantages for attackers is its ability to automate work that previously required teams of human operators. Reconnaissance, vulnerability research, exploit generation, phishing, credential harvesting and even portions of lateral movement can now be accelerated or, in some cases, largely orchestrated by AI.
Recent research has demonstrated autonomous agents carrying out much of the operational work in sophisticated cyber campaigns while humans supervise the broader objectives. As a result, campaigns become easier and less expensive to scale, more targets can be pursued simultaneously and attackers can test far more paths into an environment before defenders realize they’re being probed.
For years, vulnerability management assumed that organizations had weeks, or even months, to identify, prioritize and remediate security issues. That assumption no longer reflects reality. Attackers routinely move from initial access to lateral movement in less than an hour, and vulnerabilities are increasingly exploited shortly after disclosure, and in some cases are weaponized before defenders have even begun evaluating them.