At the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, organizations must prioritize three things, says Stephanie Hagopian, vice president of physical and cybersecurity solutions at CDW: security with AI, security for AI and security from AI.
“In all three of those buckets, there’s some trepidation around how much you should invest in specific technology solutions versus taking care of the foundation of what you need to do from a governance standpoint,” she says.
In an interview at Cisco Live, the technology company’s annual user conference, which took place in June in San Diego, Hagopian and other experts discussed how businesses should think through those three AI security priorities.
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Most organizations are trying to get a handle on the data they have — to understand what their “crown jewels are” and ensure that they know where critical data lives and how it’s classified and documented. Only when scrupulous data governance is in place can they get value from an AI model, Hagopian notes, because such models sit atop that data and use it to achieve their objectives.
“Data security has been talked about a heck of a lot, but nobody’s done anything about it,” she said at the conference. “Now everyone’s doing something about it. It’s No. 1 on the list of things people want to talk about.”
Ensuring AI models are delivering business value without compromising data security is complicated. Businesses should ensure they have help from experienced experts who can help them over potential roadblocks to success. “They need recommendations on ‘Where do I have gaps? What should I do to ensure I’m the maturity state I should be in before I go make this AI investment?” Hagopian said.
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The Workaround People Are Using to Avoid Internet Age Verification
Governments have started passing laws requiring internet users to prove their age before accessing certain websites — and as a result, the use of VPNs is soaring.
VPNs, which can disguise the location of a web user, recently became the most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store in the U.K. after sites including Reddit and X began requiring age verification.
“As of Monday morning, half of the top 10 free apps in Apple’s app download charts in the U.K. appeared to be for VPN services,” the BBC reports. “And one app maker told the BBC it had seen an 1,800% spike in downloads.”
It’s a response to the Online Safety Act, which took effect July 25 and mandates age verification for sites hosting user-generated content that may harm minors. The spike in VPN use may soon be coming to the United States, as well, after the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law in June that imposes similar requirements on adult web sites.
