Even in the AI Era, Basic Cyber Hygiene Is Still Key

Source Domain: www.govtech.com

ORLANDO, Fla. — Even as AI is significantly changing the cybersecurity landscape, experts still recommend foundational, traditional cyber controls.

In this week’s ISAC Annual Summit,* an ongoing conversation thread emerged about how cybersecurity defenders could fend off criminals. During panels and Q&A segments, attendees raised the same concern: What can we do to keep our systems safe?

State, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) cyber practitioners are looking for concrete ways to lock down systems as criminals armed with publicly available AI platforms move at faster speeds, attack at higher volumes and scan the Internet for clues to who is most vulnerable. Participants examined cybersecurity measures such as identity management and email security processes, and deepfakes and business email compromise.

In Tuesday’s “Joint Threat Brief: Center for Internet Security and Center for Digital Government,” CIS analysts walked through current cybersecurity concerns ranging from international cyber threats to AI’s effects on cybersecurity. Randy Rose, vice president of security operations and intelligence at CIS, reminded those present to commit to basic cyber hygiene, pointing to CIS Critical Security Controls.

“We have found that getting the basics right — when I say the basics, I don’t mean to imply that they’re easy or simple because they’re not,” Rose said. “But they’re the essential things that we have to get right from a layered defense model. They mitigate an incredible number of attacks, even the more advanced attacks that we see.”

Inventory control is at the top of the CIS security controls list. No. 1 within that is hardware assets and No. 2 is software assets. The work isn’t exciting, panelists agreed, but it will address multiple issues including supply chain management and endpoint management. When IT shops know what is in their environment, not only does…

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