AI vs. AI: The Race to Patch Vulnerabilities

AI’s speed at identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities is turning the patching process on its head. The uptick in pace is forcing CIOs and CISOs to recalibrate the vulnerability identification and patching process without avoiding major disruption to enterprise operations.

The gap between discovery and exploitation used to be days, weeks or months but has “shrunk to the point where it can be measured in minutes … in some cases, as little as 25 minutes from exploitation to data exfiltration,” said Fernando Maymi, vice president of professional services and training at cybersecurity company Anomali.

While bad actors are using AI to speed up the exposure of vulnerabilities, CISOs and CIOs are turning to the technology to better triage and patch potential risks before they’re discovered.

“The biggest concern is not really AI itself, but it’s that gap between the machine speed and the human speed of governance, patching and all the rigamarole that we have to do within the company in order to stay up to date,” said Brian Wilson, CISO at SAS, an enterprise software company. The cadence will only increase as AI models improve, he said.

AI accelerates vulnerability exposure

Traditionally, security operations centers had more time between when a patch was released and when it had to be applied because it took time for bad actors to identify how to leverage a vulnerability, Wilson explained. Now that AI is helping bad actors move faster, the speed at which CISOs respond is more critical, he said.