At McAfee’s European User conference, MPOWER, Enterprise Times caught up with Steve Grobman, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, McAfee. In his keynote, Grobman talked about the challenges of using Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The cyber security industry has created a view that AI and ML are the key to winning the war against hackers. It is an attractive proposition, especially as we have a significant shortage of skilled experts. The problem is that like any technology, they have to be thought through before they are deployed. As Grobman showed, it is very easy to misuse ML and AI. The result is that the technologies fail to deliver on their promise.

Steve Grobman, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, McAfee

In this podcast Grobman goes into more detail about the benefits and risks of using the two technologies. One major risk is that bad actors are already beginning to use the technologies themselves. They are using the technology to counter the use of AI and ML by security companies as well as to help them deliver more effective attacks.

There are also questions over what ML and AI are actually delivering. Grobman says that: “Even the term Artificial Intelligence is misleading in that it is not actually intelligent.” Grobman also warns that ML will not magically detect a new threat. He cautions that it is easy to overstate the effectiveness of the training of a model. Part of the problem is ensuring that the training set is valid and effective,

To hear what else Grobman had to say listen to the podcast

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