The Gately Report: ConnectWise CISO Warns of AI Unknowns

While everyone in cybersecurity is talking about AI, what’s not being addressed are the AI unknowns, says ConnectWise CISO Patrick Beggs.

We spoke with him during last week’s IT Nation Secure. ConnectWise unveiled new tools, including Security360 and Sidekick for Security, to help MSPs better meet their customers’ cybersecurity needs.

AI Unknowns Worrisome

During his keynote, Beggs said AI is “sucking up the oxygen in the room and dominating our conversations.”

“There's still an unknown of how threat actors are going to truly utilize AI,” he said. “We're seeing a lot of low-level things that they’re using AI on, and it's fine, but I think it's yet to be seen some of the more mature [uses]. Some of the cybercriminal groups, the really larger ones that are successful, they don't have to use it yet. Why interrupt something that's already working? They're just doing business email compromise (BEC) right now. They're probably leveraging some AI to write, but what is unknown are some of the more behavioral advanced attacks that we haven't seen yet. I'm worried about those. What's going to come that my endpoint security vendor isn’t going to be able to detect? If you know the "pyramid of pain," as it's called in cyber, it’s the unknown that worries me.”

Related:IT Nation Secure: ConnectWise Unleashes Security360, Sidekick for Security

ConnectWise's Patrick Beggs

During IT Nation Secure, ConnectWise urged MSPs to create an AI action plan to leverage AI to improve their operations, while preparing for cybercrime accelerated by AI.

Beggs said a good place to start is understanding AI.

“Just peel back the first layer; start understanding it,” he said. “At the surface it's not that complex. Once you get into the behavioral model side of things, it gets pretty complicated, but they don't have to really necessarily understand that.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Beggs and more cybersecurity news.