{"id":202014,"date":"2026-04-03T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/ai-attack-trends-reshape-cybersecurity-at-rsac-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T17:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:00:36","slug":"ai-attack-trends-reshape-cybersecurity-at-rsac-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/ai-attack-trends-reshape-cybersecurity-at-rsac-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"AI attack trends reshape cybersecurity at RSAC 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI attack trends reshape cybersecurity at RSAC 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/siliconangle.com\/2026\/04\/03\/three-insights-ai-attack-thecube-rsac-2026-rsac26\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-03 16:44:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: siliconangle.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe theme of this year\u2019s RSAC gathering in San Francisco was \u201cThe Power of Community.\u201d Based on the presentations and dialogue that took place over four days, the cybersecurity community is increasingly autonomous and under AI attack.
\nSurvey results provided to SiliconANGLE from Enterprise Technology Research show that as organizations turn to stronger hygiene and deeper layers of protection, AI is becoming a major part of the enterprise platform, often at the expense of cloud investment. Yet, AI agent adoption is also moving faster than an organization\u2019s ability to control it, and AI-generated attacks are adding a new layer of complexity to an already challenging security picture.
\n\u201cThis is the first time that we\u2019ve seen LLM and gen AI protection be the number one player. Cloud security had been the number one player for the last two years,\u201d according to Erik Bradley, chief strategist and research director at Enterprise Technology Research, in an analysis on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone has the control tower at this moment. I think it\u2019s going to be a blend. That\u2019s why I keep saying depth of defense. It\u2019s a term we used to use 10, 20 years ago that I think is more important now than ever.\u201d
\nBradley and other industry experts joined theCUBE Research\u2019s Jon Oltsik, Christophe Bertrand and Dave Vellante\u00a0during the RSAC 2026 Conference to provide exclusive commentary about how enterprise security is being reshaped by identity fragmentation, autonomous threats and AI systems. (* Disclosure below.)
\nHere\u2019s theCUBE\u2019s complete video analysis with Erik Bradley and Dave Vellante:<\/p>\n

Here are three insights you may have missed:
\nInsight #1: The lateral world will play a central role in defending against an AI attack, and cyber resilience now demands AI-powered defense at machine speed.
\nSome of the most damaging cybersecurity attacks can happen when a threat actor successfully breaches a poorly guarded part of the network and then uses that access to navigate laterally across IT systems.
\nThis exposure is what Broadcom Inc. is addressing, through a four-step prescriptive deployment framework, and controls positioned closer to the workload. The key is to have enforcement, prevention and mitigation \u2014 not just detection \u2014 according to Prashant Gandhi\u00a0(pictured, left), vice president of products for the application networking and security division at Broadcom.
\n\u201cIf you really look at any AI-generated attack, ultimately what happens is that the perimeter is breached, the attacker gets in, lands on a weakly-protected asset, then moves laterally,\u201d Gandhi explained during an interview with theCUBE. \u201cThat lateral propagation is where we come in, because we lay the trap in the lateral world, and that\u2019s where we drive zero trust.\u201d
\nOrganizations are grappling with a new reality in which attacks are moving much faster. Google Mandiant\u2019s \u201cM-Trends 2026\u201d report documented that the median time from an attacker\u2019s initial access to passing further action on to a secondary set of threat actions had fallen from eight hours to only 22 seconds. A human-only response is no longer a possibility.
\n\u201cTime is measured in seconds and minutes,\u201d said Francis deSouza, chief operating officer and president of security products at Google Cloud, in conversation with theCUBE. \u201cIt\u2019s not possible to mount a human-only defense against an AI attack. The old models of having a human defense or a human-in-the-loop defense have really got to change. Now what we\u2019re seeing is primarily an agentic defense \u2014 using AI to fight AI \u2014 so that you can move at machine speed too, and you can have humans overseeing the process, creating guardrails, creating the policies and the strategies, and monitoring what\u2019s happening.\u201d
\nHere\u2019s theCUBE\u2019s complete video interview with Prashant Gandhi and Umesh Mahajan\u00a0(pictured, right) of Broadcom:<\/p>\n

Insight #2: The quantum threat is closing in on enterprises, and it\u2019s time to pick up the pace toward built-in protection.
\nThe ability of quantum computing to rapidly decrypt algorithms that have protected critical systems for decades may soon force enterprises to adopt a whole new set of preventative measures, according to Mark Hughes, global managing partner of cybersecurity services at IBM Corp. The only question now is how much time there is before protections need to be in place.
\n\u201cMy first piece of advice is don\u2019t panic, because there\u2019s a lot that we know how to do already, which intrinsically underpins the safe use and introduction of AI into enterprises. But notwithstanding the \u2018don\u2019t panic\u2019 thing, it\u2019s \u2018get busy and get moving very fast,\u2019\u201d Hughes told theCUBE. \u201cThe same principles [around governance and deployment] apply when it comes to how we do that with AI and how you get that into the enterprise, but we need to speed up.\u201d
\nHughes believes that a silver lining in the quantum threat is that it will push enterprises to become more disciplined in the management of certificates, keys and broader cryptographic workflows. It can also remove a growing bottleneck to AI adoption since the sheer volume of work required cannot be done by humans alone.
\nIBM has developed four quantum-resistant algorithms, and the U.S. Department of Commerce\u2019s National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its first three finalized post-quantum encryption standards for organizations to adopt.
\n\u201cGetting organized around cryptography now is essential \u2014 not just because of the quantum event, although that is absolutely a necessity,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cYou need to be doing that now so we can get to a state of what we\u2019re describing at IBM [as] \u2018crypto agility,\u2019 where we move away from how we\u2019ve traditionally managed crypt, which is hard-coded crypt. It\u2019s worked, and it\u2019s worked really well for us, but that\u2019s not relevant now in today\u2019s environment.\u201d
\nHere\u2019s theCUBE\u2019s complete video interview with Mark Hughes of IBM:<\/p>\n

Insight #3: AI agents are transforming the identity channel and helping close the skills gap in cybersecurity.
\nZero trust is one of the critical principles for enterprise systems, and it has worked reasonably well when human behavior is involved. However, the introduction of AI agents into mainstream work processes has altered the nature of identity, where each action now needs to be authorized in real-time based on live context.
\nTo address this new dynamic, enterprise access security provider Ping Identity Inc. has launched an Identity for AI platform designed to improve visibility into agents across environments to ensure they are not operating outside the boundaries for a given task.
\n\u201cWith agents acting in our system, there\u2019s no equivalent of a consequence for something that we deem to be \u2026 damaging to the company,\u201d said Andre Durand, founder and chief executive officer of Ping Identity, during an appearance on theCUBE. \u201cFor that reason, the guardrails need to be much tighter.\u201d
\nDespite the need for tighter controls, AI agents are proving to be a solution at the right time for the cybersecurity industry. According to the 2025 \u201cISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study,\u201d the cybersecurity industry experienced a critical shortage of 3.5 to 4 million professionals globally last year.
\nAn ability to offload \u201ctier-one\u201d tasks such as phishing triage to AI agents will enable security professionals to reclaim hundreds of hours each month and focus on preemptive threat pursuit, according to Scott Woodgate, general manager for threat protection at Microsoft Corp.
\n\u201cAgents provide a real opportunity to take automation to the next level and fundamentally upskill the roles that people have so that [the] employment gap actually can be filled by the partnership between people and agents,\u201d Woodgate told theCUBE.
\nHere\u2019s theCUBE\u2019s complete video interview with Andre Durand of Ping Identity:<\/p>\n

To watch more of theCUBE\u2019s coverage of RSAC 2026, here\u2019s our complete video playlist:<\/p>\n

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the RSAC 2026 Conference. Sponsors of theCUBE\u2019s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
\nPhoto: SiliconANGLE<\/p>\n

Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE\u2019s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.<\/p>\n

15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
\n11.4k+ theCUBE alumni \u2014 Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.<\/p>\n

About SiliconANGLE Media<\/p>\n

SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios \u2014 with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange \u2014 SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.<\/p>\n

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI attack trends reshape cybersecurity at RSAC 2026 https:\/\/siliconangle.com\/2026\/04\/03\/three-insights-ai-attack-thecube-rsac-2026-rsac26\/ Publish Date: 2026-04-03 16:44:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d15shllkswkct0.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2026\/04\/Prashant-Gandhi-Umesh-Mahajan.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24,17,25,34],"class_list":["post-202014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-llm","tag-phishing","tag-threat-actor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202016,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202014\/revisions\/202016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}