Heather Adkins, a Google veteran and founding member of Google’s security team, has been extremely vocal in her concerns about the Internet. Speaking to those attending the TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 conference in San Francisco she told them “some stuff” like personal information should not be included in your emails. She also went as far as to joke that she had deleted all of her husband’s love letters from the Internet because of safety issues. Is she right to warn users and investors about safety concerns?
Artificial Intelligence
There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a part of everyday life and will only become more prominent. Adkins was very vocal about the use of AI to defend the Internet from cyber-attacks suggesting it was more useful in carrying out cyber-attacks. Apparently the problem is that while AI will flag a number of issues related to cyber-attacks and will also flag a number of false positives which take time and money to review. Therefore, in the opinion of Heather Adkins AI would be more useful in actually carrying out cyber-attacks.
Safety is an issue
Whether we like it or not safety is an issue when it comes to the Internet and online data. Only a few days ago we saw Equifax admit to a large-scale data breach. There are potentially millions of customer records at risk which is not good when you bear in mind the amount and type of data held by the credit monitoring firm. We know the Internet is not 100% safe, we know systems are only as safe as their users and software and to be honest we need to appreciate and begin to live with this.
More and more people are becoming concerned about passing confidential information to 3rd parties when acquiring products and services online. In reality there is as much risk from using your credit card in a restaurant as there is when dealing online but the fear of hacking is so great at the moment that it does not seem this way.
Hackers are always one step ahead
By definition cyber security systems can only protect from hacks which have already occurred allowing them to gather data and block in the future. So, by definition the hackers are always one step ahead of the cyber security companies although progress has certainly been made in this area. People are now savvy about opening and responding to dubious emails which have in the past been an easy way to infect individual PCs. Many of us now know the tell-tale signs of a potential hacking attempt, a fraudulent email and spyware.
It is surprising to learn that in the opinion of Heather Adkins, AI will be of little assistance in the fight against hackers. Indeed she quoted a report from 1972 which covered hacking strategies, suggesting that AI would even struggle to combat more aged hacking techniques.
A solution
Rather than attempting to combat each and every type of hack with cyber security software, Heather Adkins believes the best way is to employ an army of junior engineers who will do nothing but patch security issues. When you recall that Google initially invested hundreds of millions of dollars into AI only to sell the subsidiary on, perhaps Heather Adkins does have a point?