Reclaiming time: A new cyber defense imperative
Three things to remember
- AI-powered cyberattacks are outpacing traditional defenses – and the clock is ticking.
- Cyber deception tool can stop attackers in their tracks and reveal what they’re doing.
- Cybersecurity modernization is about speed of response in addition to efficiency.
Every cyberattack is a race between attacker and defender. Artificial intelligence is changing the terms of that race.
Tasks that once took threat actors hours or days can now be automated and executed in seconds or minutes. As attackers gain speed and scale, cyber defenders are confronting a new challenge: how to create enough time to understand what is happening and respond before a threat achieves its objective.
At TechNet Cyber, Leidos cybersecurity leaders Josh Salmanson and Paul Welch discussed how organizations can adapt to this faster, more complex environment. Their insights point to a common theme: creating a strategic advantage in cyberspace.
Creating clarity from complexity
One of the greatest challenges facing cyber defenders is not a lack of information. It is an abundance of it.
Modern networks generate enormous volumes of security data, alerts and telemetry. As AI enables attackers to move faster, defenders need ways to quickly identify what matters and separate meaningful threats from background noise.
[We can] leverage AI to bring simplicity to complexities in data, to bring clarity to observation of activities, to be able to move that advantage back to the defender.
Paul Welch
VP Defense IT, Leidos
AI can play an important role in that effort. When applied thoughtfully, it can help organizations process information at scale, identify patterns and provide greater visibility into suspicious activity. Rather than replacing human expertise, these capabilities can help analysts focus their attention where it matters most.
In an environment where seconds and minutes are critical, clarity becomes a strategic advantage.
How cyber deception imposes cost and pain on attackers
Every minute an attacker spends pursuing a false lead is a minute they are not advancing toward their objective. Cyber deception turns an adversary’s speed against them, forcing them to spend time, effort and resources navigating an environment designed to create uncertainty.
When [adversaries] run into deceptive technology, it slows them down. They don’t know where they are. They lose their bearings.
Josh Salmanson
VP Defensive Cyber, Leidos
When attackers encounter deceptive systems, they may continue executing their tactics without realizing they are interacting with a controlled environment. That activity can provide defenders with early warning, valuable intelligence and high-confidence indicators of malicious behavior.
Most importantly, deception creates something that is becoming increasingly scarce in cybersecurity: time.
Why cybersecurity modernization is critical for cyber resilience
Creating a faster response window also requires organizations to address longstanding challenges within their technology environments.
Many enterprises continue to manage aging infrastructure, growing technical debt and increasingly complex software ecosystems. At the same time, identity has become a critical security boundary as users, devices and applications connect across distributed environments.
These challenges are often interconnected. Legacy systems can limit visibility. Technical debt can slow modernization efforts. Fragmented environments can create gaps where threats are harder to detect and track.
Addressing these issues is about more than improving efficiency. It is about building the foundation needed to operate effectively in a future where cyber threats move at machine speed.
Organizations that modernize infrastructure, improve visibility across environments and reduce barriers to information sharing will be better positioned to respond to emerging threats and adopt new technologies with confidence.
Cyber defense strategies for an AI-powered threat environment
As AI continues to reshape the cyber landscape, defenders face a fundamental challenge: keeping pace with an increasingly automated threat environment.
The answer is creating conditions that allow defenders to see faster, understand faster and act faster.
Modernization is often discussed as an efficiency initiative. Today, it is becoming a time initiative. Organizations burdened by technical debt spend valuable time managing complexity instead of responding to threats.
Whether through AI-enabled analytics, cyber deception or modernization efforts, the goal remains the same: creating decision advantage by reclaiming time.
In cybersecurity, that time may be the most valuable resource of all.
