Generative Ai Key Considerations For South African Cybersecurity Teams

The artificial intelligence AI landscape is evolving rapidly, particularly in the field of cybersecurity. Many organizations in South Africa are increasingly investing in application security, with a growing emphasis on AI-driven solutions to strengthen their cybersecurity strategies. This shift reflects the rising recognition of AIs potential benefits as the technology continues to advance.

David Roth, Chief Revenue Officer for Enterprise America at Trend Micro, and Jeff Pollard, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester, recently led an insightful webinar to clarify the realities of AI. They highlighted an important point while AI and machine learning have been integral to security strategies for some time, the introduction of generative AI Gen AI brings new complexities.

As South African security teams navigate the opportunities and challenges of incorporating Gen AI into their operations, several key considerations were emphasized during the webinar

Be aware of the impact on skills
The excitement surrounding Gen AI in cybersecurity isnt just due to the appeal of a more advanced tool. Security teams are facing increasing pressures due to limited resources and the constant evolution of threats. As a result, when Gen AI emerged, there was speculation about the possibility of fully autonomous security operations centers SOCs with AI-driven malware detection systems. However, the reality is that current Gen AI systems still require human oversight. Rather than solving the skills shortage, Gen AI could even pose new training challenges in the short term. Integrating these tools into existing workflows can also take time, even for experienced professionals. Nevertheless, there are significant advantages to using Gen AI now, particularly in augmenting existing capabilities and reducing repetitive tasks. This is especially beneficial in areas such as application development and threat detection and response.

Understand how to achieve quick wins
One of the immediate benefits for security teams using Gen AI is automating documentation tasks. Generating action summaries, event reports, and write-ups can be time-consuming and tedious, but Gen AI can perform these tasks instantly. This frees up valuable time for security professionals to focus on more critical incidents and activities.