Why today’s security needs a dash of retro know-how
Feeling stressed at work? Are you looking for a way to quickly relieve the intolerable pressure of your everyday tasks? Why not try AI? Discover for yourself why a majority of IT leaders believe AI can reduce your stress levels, reduce burnout and help you achieve a better work-life balance.
You too can reduce your repetitive manual tasks and free yourself to focus on meaningful work and improve your day-to-day routine thanks to AI.
Perhaps you’re not sure what it can be used for or how it will benefit you, maybe you’re concerned about adopting AI, worried about data and privacy, distrustful of AI or resistant to using it. Fear not. Be reassured that all your fears and anxieties about AI will be addressed. Perhaps not in the near future but Big Tech can guarantee that once AI has been implemented in nearly everything it can think of, the IT industry promises to try and make it safer and more secure.
What’s that? You’re not feeling reassured after reading the press release about IBM’s latest Cost of a Data Breach Report? Why is that?
Oh, it’s because the very first sentence states that “AI adoption is greatly outpacing AI security and governance”. So, it’s a victim of its own success, right? But you’re still feeling a bit uneasy because although the report noted “the overall number of organisations experiencing an AI-related breach is a small representation of the researched population, this is the first time security, governance and access controls for AI have been studied in this report, which suggests AI is already an easy, high value target”.
Well, perhaps we can take solace in the fact that these are early days and things can only improve. After all, that’s the story of IT down through the ages. I mean is it really worth getting bogged down in facts and figures when we’re going full steam ahead to the glorious AI future?
Alright, so IBM found that 13% of organisations reported breaches of AI models or applications and 8% reported not knowing if they had been compromised in this way. Big deal. So what if 97% of those compromised did not have AI access controls in place or that, as a result, 60% of the AI-related security incidents led to compromised data and 31% led to operational disruption. Don’t let minor short term niggles obscure your view of the sunlit uplands ahead.
IBM claims that the results “show that organisations are bypassing security and governance for AI in favour of do-it-now AI adoption. Ungoverned systems are more likely to be breached – and more costly when they are”. Hold on. Why not try and think of it this way, without speedy adoption of AI exposing all those security holes there would be no need for security and governance of AI. Right?
Oh, so now you want to talk about the news report in SC Media headlined Sloppy AI defenses take cybersecurity back to the 1990s, researchers say. Before we go any further, can I just say what a great era the 1990s were. No? Maybe later.
So the story highlights remarks made by various security alumni at the Black Hat USA 2025 security conference in Las Vegas. Wendy Nather, senior research initiatives director at 1Password, compared AI agents to toddlers. “You have to follow them around and make sure they don’t do dumb things,” she said. And we don’t want any smart remarks suggesting that with the headlong rush by Big Tech to adopt and implement AI with little foresight or strategy, it’s not just AI agents Wendy.
Please don’t bring up Nathan Hamiel, senior director of research at Kudelski Security, saying that many old vulnerabilities are resurfacing again because “the GenAI space is full of security bad practices. When you deploy these tools, you increase your attack surface. You’re creating vulnerabilities where there weren’t any.”
Okay, so you think that’s bad but it’s kind of groundbreaking in its own way, isn’t it? Even the bit about Hamiel stating we shouldn’t treat AI agents as highly sophisticated, super-intelligent systems but more like “drunk robots”. Admit it, “drunk robots” would be funny, wouldn’t they?
I see you’re not laughing. Instead you want to talk about Hamiel claiming “vulnerabilities are showing up at alarming rates because of these tools. It’s just getting worse due to vibe coding and AI coding assistants. If you wanted to know what it was like to hack in the ‘90s, now’s your chance.”
How about that? Not only can AI do all those other incredible things that we can’t quite give a clear definitive answer on right now but it can also help you to time travel. Wait, we are you going? Come back! Think about your stress levels!
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