WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
AI may be helping generate autonomous cyber weapons but it’s also helping fight cyber villains!
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Recently Artificial Intelligence (AI) models from OpenAI and Google DeepMind claimed the Gold in the Maths Olympiad, and now for the first time ever – as AI becomes increasingly capable of autonomous cyber offense and defense – an AI model has seized the top spot on a white hat hacking leaderboard.
In a blog post, the cybersecurity firm Xbow boasted about its historic rise to the top of the HackerOne leaderboard, which ranks the top ethical hackers in the US against each other as they duke it out in the name of cybersecurity.
AI and the Future of Cyber Defense, by Keynote Matthew Griffin
Xbow’s use of AI for white hat hacking follows a long tradition of automation on both sides of the ethics divide, culminating in a majority of hackers using the technology. Xbow claims its AI is “fully autonomous,” operating with minimal human input, though of course that’s a common claim that often turns out to be more complicated in reality.
Xbow’s AI is centered on what’s known as “automated penetration testing,” a method that simulates cyberattacks by exploiting vulnerabilities in a given system — a much faster version of the so-called “pentests” that human white hat hackers do on behalf of clients to probe their potential vulnerabilities.
As company founder Oege de Moor told Bloomberg, such “manual” — read: human-conducted — tests cost about $18,000 on average and can take weeks to complete, often leading businesses to put off this important security measure until it’s too late.
“By automating this,” de Moor said, “we can completely change the equation.”
While it’s clear that Xbow’s process works, it’s not without flaws. As PC Gamer notes, Xbow’s tech is as prone to hallucination as any other AI — but the company circumvents any harm, it says, by having humans vet each issue as it arises.
Beyond winning the top hacker spot, the year-old startup has also raised $117 million in seed funding to date from financiers including Sequoia Capital and the venture capital firm NFDG. Speaking to Bloomberg, NFDG partner Nat Friedman said that although Xbow’s AI is “exciting,” he also finds it “somewhat terrifying.”
“We are now in the era of machines hacking machines,” Friedman said.
