AI has the potential to arm the good guys with a new degree of power and flip the table upside down against cyber security criminals.
This is the view of John Scimone, the President and Chief Security Officer at Dell Technologies, where he leads the company’s global corporate security program.
Speaking to ITWire at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, Scimone said complexity is the enemy of security in the global technology landscape. “And with complexity comes greater security challenges.
“I continue to hear from peers and across our customer base about complexity. And now with AI we look at algorithms and that they are great at dealing with massive amounts of complexity and extracting information making it simpler for humans.
“So, when I think about the opportunities from a cyber security perspective the use of algorithms makes our jobs easier to sort through information. I think this offers huge potential. We have been on the losing team for so long. I really think this is the time where – with these AI capabilities coming online – and then soon transitioning into an Agentic world we have the opportunity to flip the table upside down in terms of the imbalance and arm the good guys with a new degree of power.”
Scimone said the reality is that the number of cyber criminals is increasing and the number of attacks is increasing. “The cost of attacks is increasing but the cost to be a criminal is decreasing. The barriers of entry into this criminal underworld is getting easier with evolving asset service models.
“Realistically, most of the key measures of success are not trending in our favour. That’s why I think you need something as disruptive as AI to come in and completely upset those historical equations. It is on us to take full advantage of because we know the other side to going to be.”
Scimone has a relatively unique role in that he has responsibility for Dell’s product security as well as supply chain security.
“It is not only about protecting our own company from harm, but we also have the opportunity to ensure that customers that are trusting Dell with their technology – that they are getting the world’s most secure laptop, they are getting an inherently more secure and resilient product.”
Scimone said the overwhelming challenge for cyber security in recent years is ransomware.
“Yes, there are other threats, but nine out of 10 conversations I have with customers has ransomware at the forefront. We have a large incident response and recovery team helping our customers work through when they are having their worst day. The work we actually prefer to do is before their worst day. We have a strategic consultancy that goes in and partners with our customers to prepare them not just from a technology perspective but setting up a cyber vault to make sure that all of their data that is most critical is tucked away offline. So even in a ransomware attack they are going to be able to get their data back.
“And this is more than just do you have a vault? Obviously, the answer has to be yes but the questions that follow are about are you ready to use it? How quickly can you get your business back online? Are you prepared procedurally, culturally, operationally?”
Scimone offered his top three tips organisations should have in place to protect their data.
“The first is to do the basics brilliantly. It is much easier to say than do! What I mean is moving away from passwords, putting multi factor authentication in place. Secondly, and one of the modern imperatives, is getting an air-gapped vaulted copy of your most critical data. Get with your backup team and get your most critical data in a separate place where ransomware actors can’t touch it.
“Thirdly, it is about having the right team. And that is not just a cyber security team but having your company ready to navigate this landscape. It is not just the security team’s responsibility. It is not just the IT teams. It is a whole of company effort to navigate these issues from incorporating the right risk tolerance and profile with your business strategy to ensuring the right resourcing and funding are there to make sure that every member of your organisation understands that these attacks are actually more often than not hitting people rather than systems.
“If you do these things, you know you are in a good starting position.”