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It’s no secret that the threat environment has changed in recent years, with more sophisticated and more frequent cyberattacks. I recently spoke with Gil Shwed, co-founder and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. He’s widely credited with inventing the modern firewall and keeps a close (some might say obsessive) eye on the threat environment. Here are some of his observations:
Mainly what’s growing is the sophistication of the attacks. It’s becoming much simpler to develop attacks. Generative AI makes writing malware, for example, very easy. You can go to a tool like ChatGPT, ask it to develop a back-office application that collects information and then write a phishing email from that information that looks perfect. You can do all of that without knowing how to program or having the best English to write those emails.
Of course, AI can also be used to fight cyberattacks. We are using a lot of AI in our tools. We have what we call ThreatCloud, which is a network of threat sensors that share data and collaborate to fight malware. We use about 75 different threat engines, as we call them, to identify and stop these attacks. Now, 42 of them are already AI-based. We just launched five new ones and launched 12 last year.
ChatGPT had only existed for two months when we found it was used in at least five major instances to create attacks. Those are attacks we have blocked on our customer sites. A typical organization in the U.S. is being attacked 1,200 times a week.
The typical cloud application is connected to 15 other applications. From a security standpoint, it’s a nightmare. That means 15 other applications can impact the security of the application you’re using. It creates a lot of challenges and it’s a huge investment on our end to defend the cloud.
Every new technology has people get over-excited by it and there are people who are too scared of it. Generative AI can democratize a lot of things: People who are not amazing in writing skills can now write in a professional manner; they can present their ideas in a way that lets them compete with people who have a perfect command of English. You can use these tools to enhance learning. We should focus on how to leverage the potential.
We all need more cybersecurity. It’s not just about spending more money. How do we deploy prevention-first architecture instead of just detecting threats and fighting them? For solutions, I think about the three Cs: comprehensive, consolidated and collaborative. If you have a fire alarm on the sixth floor, we all know what to do. In cyber, one tool can stop an attack but the threat has maybe spread to a different floor or is now coming from a different area. We need tools that collaborate all the time. It’s not a simple task to achieve but it’s necessary.
I’m now celebrating 30 years since starting Check Point. The internet has made our world more connected and more open and maybe even more democratic. The challenge now is to make it more secure.
