​Why Every AI Strategy Needs A Workforce Strategy

​Haris Pylarinos is the founder and CEO of Hack The Box, a leading cyber readiness platform for the AI era.

There is a common misconception in cybersecurity that spending a lot on software and AI makes the problem go away on its own. That’s not true. You can buy a very expensive car, but without a driver’s license, it’s not taking you anywhere on its own. You have to understand how to drive it first. ​

I’m a strong believer that cybersecurity starts with the people, not the tools. AI is a sophisticated piece of tooling, but you need people who understand how to use it, evaluate it and recognize when it’s wrong. Instead, most AI strategies begin with platforms and investments, while the workforce that is expected to use these systems every day gets far less attention.​

A Different Game

The cyber threat landscape has changed completely in recent years. Before AI, criminals would blast a generic phishing email to a thousand people in a company. It’s an obvious scam, but statistically, if you send it to a thousand people, someone will click. Now, with AI, you can craft a thousand different personalized messages for each individual, targeting their specific interests. Those messages can all be created and sent in parallel, and some systems even allow for live chat. Unsurprisingly, the success rate goes up.​

AI has also changed what it means to do the job. A strong penetration tester from the ‘90s would barely recognize their role today. AI can handle many of the trivial tasks now, which means you need to learn to operate at a different scale. Now it’s like having 10 people reporting to you, all running tasks in parallel, while you’re the one collecting data and making decisions. The role has been reinvented, and criminals are already operating on this level.​

Where Organizations Get It Wrong

You Can’t Outsource Experience

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