'AI- BOON OR BOONDOGGLE?' - CMO CYBERSECURITY

1. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
AI: BOON OR
BOONDOGGLE?
Zulfikar Ramzan, PhD
Chief Technology Officer, RSA
@zulfikar_ramzan
#CyberAI

2. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
AI LEXICON
A CRASH COURSE
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
MACHINE
LEARNING
NEURAL
NETWORKS
DEEP NEURAL
NETWORKS
@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
Machine Learning:
Field of study that gives computers the ability to learn
without being explicitly programmed
--Arthur Samuelson, 1959

3. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
K A SPA R OV VS D EEP B LU E
MACHINE LEARNING VS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

4. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI

5. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
APPLYING ML/AI TO CYBERSECURITY

6. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
PITFALLS AND
CHALLENGES

7. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
SUPERVISED LEARNING
<Example 1, Label 1>
<Example 2, Label 2>
.
.
.
<Example N, Label N>
Generate
Model
Apply Model:
<New Example, ??>
Example:
Historical loan applications; labels represent whether applicant defaulted.
Generate model that can predict whether new applicant will default.

8. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
SUPERVISED LEARNING: MORE REFINED …
<Ex. 1, Label 1>
<Ex. 2, Label 2>
.
.
.
<Ex. N, Label N>
Generate
Model
Apply Model:
<New Example, ??>
Extract
features
Example:
Extract relevant attributes from loan application (e.g., years of employment, age,
marital status, loan size, income). Generate model / classification algorithm from those
features. (Feature identification is typically performed by a human domain expert.)
Example:
Extract relevant attributes from loan application (e.g., years of employment, age,
marital status, loan size, income). Generate model / classification algorithm from those
features. (Feature identification is typically performed by a human domain expert.)

9. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
 Machine learning is garbage-in-garbage out
 Training set ideally has to be representative of what you will actually encounter in
real life
 Ultimately, you have to ask the right questions of your data, otherwise you won’t get
the right answers.
CHALLENGE: GOOD DATA IS CRITICAL
@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI

10. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
Data
Features
Classifiers
PITFALL: BECOMING OBSESSED WITH CLASSIFIER
Degreeofimportance
Amountoftimespent
011100
110100
110001

11. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
# Good
instances
>> # Bad
Instances
Must
sidestep
many
landmines
Security
scenarios:
Class
Imbalance
Problem
CHALLENGES: CLASS IMBALANCE IN SECURITY

12. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
MACHINE LEARNING PITFALLS: ADVERSARIES ADAPT
Threat actors change
behaviors as needed;
time to change is
correlated with how big a
threat you are to their
operations
Machine learning
algorithms typically don’t
assume adversarial
scenarios where threat is
actively trying to sabotage
the algorithm
Can address through
careful weighting of
recent data vs. older data,
rapid
retraining/relearning,
online learning
Transfer learning or
inductive transfer is area
of research designed for
developing ML
algorithms that try to use
knowledge gained from
solving one problem
towards different, but
related problem
Much work remains to be done in these areas
@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI

13. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
EMERGING AREAS

14. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI

15. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
FOOLING SELF-DRIVING CARS VIA PERTURBATIONS
Source: Evtimov et al. “Robust Physical Attacks on Deep Learning Models”; https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.08945.pdf

16. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
USING CHATBOTS TO TROLL SCAMMERS (RESCAM)
Source: https://www.rescam.org/
@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI

17. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
THE IMPORTANCE OF LINE 23…

18. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI@zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
KEY CONCEPTS
AI and Machine Learning are powerful techniques with
many wonderful security applications
They are not panaceas
Technology will continue to improve and it’s incumbent on
us to use it responsibly

19. @zulfikar_ramzan | #cyberAI
THANK YOU
Zulfikar Ramzan, PhD
Chief Technology Officer, RSA
@zulfikar_ramzan