Policy, Risk and AI: No Silver Bullet in Cybersecurity

At Black Hat USA 2025, a policy panel dispelled the myth of a single, sweeping fix for cyber risk. The consensus: cybersecurity resilience is a team sport—built through collaboration among CISOs, vendors, policymakers, and insurers—rather than a silver-bullet solution.

Collaboration over secrecy

• CISOs each hold part of the answer; progress comes from sharing and stitching those fragments together.
• Unlike physical security, where neighboring teams routinely exchange threat intel, cybersecurity still suffers from "security by obscurity." Breaking competitive silos is essential to outpace adversaries.

Policy matters—yet financial risk drives behavior

• Policymakers credit better posture to new regulations. That helps, but economics often leads.
• Rising breach costs and potential regulatory fines make cyber risk a board-level issue—not just an IT concern.
• Cyber insurance continues to grow as organizations seek to offset financial exposure and align risk appetite with resilience investments.

AI’s role: force multiplier, not final arbiter

• Defenders need AI to scale threat hunting and detection—doing it purely with people is impractical.
• AI tools are increasingly used to track and evidence compliance across expanding regulations.
• But if an AI compliance model misjudges conformity, penalties may still apply. AI should augment human expertise, not replace it.

Compliance outlook is fluid

• With a relatively new administration, the regulatory trajectory remains uncertain—streamlining vs. expansion is still in play.
• More policy may signal that industry self-regulation has fallen short, with stronger postures enforced through real penalties.

MFA must be a national baseline

• The panel backed a whole-of-nation push for multi-factor authentication. There’s no credible reason to delay MFA adoption.

What to do now

• Share actionable intel across sectors and competitors where appropriate.
• Quantify financial risk (including regulatory exposure) and align it with board-level priorities.
• Deploy AI for detection and compliance, but keep humans in the loop.
• Prepare for evolving compliance—from evidence collection to continuous controls monitoring.
• Make MFA universal across users, apps, and critical workflows.

Source: WeLiveSecurity