In this episode of More Intelligent tomorrow, Global AI Evangelist, Ari Kaplan, sits down with Lauren Zabierek, Executive Director of the Cyber Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, and Sean Plankey, Director of Cyber Missions for DataRobot, to discuss the cybersecurity landscape, broadening the field of cyber security, and how to build a cybersecurity career.
Both Lauren and Sean started their careers in the US government and military before pivoting to cybersecurity, with Lauren beginning her career in the United States Air Force, and Sean in the Coast Guard.
Cybersecurity has been a big topic lately, with incidents of cybersecurity increasing as much as 50% over the last two years. While cyber attacks have been in the news, the full story of the impact that they can have can be monumental.
“Every organization is at risk and our essential services and public safety could be impacted. And I think this is really evident in the different ransomware attacks, not only against critical infrastructure, but against our state governments.” - Lauren Zabierek
Cybersecurity aslo has the complicating factor that it is one of the most data-rich environments, making it hard to find the signal in the noise. This also makes it a particularly ripe industry for the application of AI and machine learning.
“How do we move to stopping a cyber incident before it occurs? That, to me, means getting after the unknown unknowns. … And I think AIML is the only way you can get there in a rapid manner.” - Sean Plankey
But before we start to panic about the state of cybersecurity, privacy and safety, it’s important to know that there are small changes we can make to keep ourselves more protected. Adding two factor authentication to our accounts can prevent a significant number of successful attacks, as well as being more aware of where you’re vulnerable online.
On top of improving personal cybersecurity, Lauren and Sean discuss how to broaden the field of cybersecurity itself. Lauren is the co-founder of the online social media movement called #ShareTheMicInCyber, which aims to dismantle racism in cybersecurity and privacy. She explains how the industry can become more inclusive and why it’s important to pull in cybersecurity professionals from a variety of backgrounds.
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