Psychological Resilience As A Personal Security Strategy?

 

“If our predictions of the coming surge in AI crime are anywhere near accurate, we’re not just going to need security skills, we’re going to need very good coping skills.”

 

The concept of resilience is very common in the cybersecurity world. It means the ability of organizations to withstand the constant swarm of attacks, to bend and sway but not break. And it also refers to the psychological resilience of cybersecurity teams who have to fight these endless battles.

These constant and relentless attacks from very well organized, very well funded, and very cruel adversaries are having a significant psychological impact on security professionals. Which is why stress and burnout in cybersecurity are at chronic levels.

If consumers are now facing the same swarms of attacks from the same people, it might be time for consumers to also think about the same strategy. Because if our predictions about AI aided crimes are right, there’s going to be a lot more stress in our future.

A good analogy is bad AI in politics. Misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda campaigns, and especially around elections, have helped to enrage and divide an already angry and stressed population.

Imagine how stressful it will become when AI is more widely used to fuel this deepfake propaganda? When it becomes almost impossible to determine whether what you’re being presented with is real or fake, frustration levels will soar.

AI-aided crime sprees are likely to have the same effect. If AI means more criminals, more crimes, more sophisticated, complicated and costly crimes, and more victims, we’re all going to need to be more resilient.

And when many of those victims will not receive any compensation or see any justice, good coping skills might be the only viable response.

As part of our efforts to combat AI crime, we’ll be focusing on psychological resilience as a tool and security strategy that’s free to all of us. We’ll be sharing more on this topic shortly.

Ironically, the word coping originally meant “to rain down blows in battle.”

Neal O’Farrell, founder of the Center for AI Crime