The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the global business landscape as we know it. It’s influencing virtually every aspect of the workplace environment, with 79% of individuals already exposed to some form of generative AI, either for work or in their daily lives. However, while AI is highly beneficial for organizations and holds the promise of addressing some of the most pressing workplace challenges today, leaders must stay aware of its drawbacks and remain judicious in implementation.
The adoption of generative AI is still in its early days; therefore, much remains uncertain and unexplored in both its potential and risks. To reap its benefits—and avoid opening a can of worms—deploying AI at scale must start with a strong internal culture of security, and companies cannot afford to overlook the most important line of defense of all: humans. But with many traditional security training and awareness models now outdated, the ability to reimagine security for the AI-centric, modern workforce will determine the AI industry winners and leaders of tomorrow.
New Rewards Bring New Risks
This past year, AI has risen in popularity and caught the attention of leaders across fields, from marketing and HR to IT, thanks to its ability to streamline and automate workflows, create content, and boost accuracy and efficiency. Common uses of AI today include producing code, running automated scripts, and generating responses to customer queries — all of which have already shown positive returns for organizations. AI technology has become increasingly sophisticated, with developments like OpenAI’s GPT-4 flooding the business landscape, but with these exciting advancements can come new security threats as well.
Some cybercriminals are also seizing the chance to weaponize AI to develop more insidious scams and create AI-manipulated content, such as voice cloning. If organizations don’t have the proper guardrails and defenses in place, they’ll be left vulnerable and potentially allow bad actors to gain access to sensitive information. Furthermore, if left untrained, employees may unintentionally misuse the technology and fuel bias or insider risk.
Additionally, controlling generative AI tools is very challenging and they have the potential to memorize and inadvertently disclose sensitive information from the data on which they were trained. This risk stems from a lack of transparency, making it difficult even for the creators of these AI tools to anticipate the content they will generate. Despite being trained on anonymized or publicly available data, there is still a concern that these tools can generate content that accidentally exposes private or sensitive details.
Right now, CISOs and business leaders across industries are grappling with how to reap the valuable benefits of AI tools, such as improved productivity and performance, without running new risks.
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It Starts with the Security Culture
By now, most employees have had enough security training to recognize the occasional, suspicious phishing email, but AI has cybercriminals using more surreptitious and Machiavellian maneuvers than ever before. Additionally, things like AI hallucination and confabulation make it hard for employees to recognize inaccurate information when using the tool in their day-to-day work.
According to the World Economic Forum, 95% of cybersecurity issues can be traced to human error. Therefore, organizations cannot afford to overlook employees’ central role in maintaining widespread security and resilience — something that clearly must start from within. Security training modules of the past simply don’t hold up today, which means leaders must reevaluate and evolve their internal security program to keep pace with the growing threat landscape.
Security culture is determined by the messaging, policies, and social behaviors of an organization. When building a security framework, CISOs and cybersecurity leaders need to first analyze and understand their workplace culture and the mindset of employees.
Do they know what happens when employees are left to their own devices?
Are employees making the right choices when deciding whether to click on a potentially malicious link?
Do they regularly update their passwords and system software?
In addition to reviewing incident data, these are the questions that leaders must ask to assess the overall wellness of their organization’s security program.
For organizations looking to lead the way in tomorrow’s modern, AI-centric workforce, here are three key steps to establish a strong internal culture of security:
Understand Your Current Security Posture: An organization’s security posture relates to its overall security strength when it comes to predicting, preventing, responding, and recovering from cyber threats. The first step toward building a security-first culture is conducting a comprehensive risk assessment to determine the effectiveness of current security measures. This provides CISOs or security leaders with visibility into their organization’s asset inventory and attack surface to help identify vulnerabilities and pinpoint specific areas for improvement. This will paint a clearer picture of current security and resilience levels, which will feed nicely into establishing an overall strategy.
Revamp Security Training & Awareness: With traditional security training and awareness models now insufficient, it’s critical to upskill and educate employees on today’s risks like AI hallucinations, shadow AI and IT, cloning/imitation scams, and more. As attackers thrive on human error, organizations can reduce negative outcomes by educating their workforce and providing central tools and training exercises.
Communicate The “Why”: With every member of an organization playing a key role in maintaining security, leaders must be transparent, direct, and clear in their messaging. Employees need to know why security is a top priority, what threats loom in today’s digital and AI-centric world, and how they can be compliant while remaining productive and efficient in their day-to-day tasks. Consistent and straightforward communication and direction will equip employees for success and motivate them to become more security-driven.
Lead The Way in the Future of Work
Creating a security-first environment is not something that happens overnight. Organizations must invest in a strategic, long-term approach that focuses on communication and behavior as well as formal policies and training. This will help ensure that security is an integral and intuitive part of employees’ day-to-day roles, which is foundational to protecting information and data as well as employee and customer privacy.
Today, it’s up to CISOs and cybersecurity leaders to reimagine security for the next era of work, driven by emerging technologies like AI. We are at a pivotal moment in time where recognizing and adapting to the risks and rewards of AI will determine the industry’s laggards and leaders. Luckily, any organization can build a strong security culture — but like any meaningful change, it takes time, acumen, and teamwork.
