{"id":214034,"date":"2026-05-14T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/ai-arms-race-new-tech-is-changing-government-cybersecurity\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T16:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:40:07","slug":"ai-arms-race-new-tech-is-changing-government-cybersecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/ai-arms-race-new-tech-is-changing-government-cybersecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Arms Race: New Tech Is Changing Government Cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Arms Race: New Tech Is Changing Government Cybersecurity<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/spotlight\/ai-arms-race-new-tech-is-changing-government-cybersecurity<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-14 16:32:00<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Advances in artificial intelligence have not changed the fundamentals of government cybersecurity, but they have changed the urgency. As AI speeds up cyber attacks and expands the digital landscape, public-sector leaders say weaknesses are now being exploited faster and more aggressively.\u00a0From cyber commands to state technology offices, government cyber leaders describe a changing environment that is increasingly defined by constant threats and shrinking response times. At the same time, AI is also giving defenders new tools to combine with traditional cybersecurity best practices. In short, AI is helping to automate both cyber attacks as well as cyber defense efforts.\u00a0The usual pressures facing government technology, meanwhile, remain unchanged, including limited resources, complex systems and the size of attack surfaces. With AI in play, those long-standing challenges now translate far more quickly into dangerous risks.\u00a0\u201cAI is the biggest disruptor we\u2019ve seen in a very long time,\u201d says Missouri CISO Shawn Ivy, a veteran of the public sector with more than 30 years of experience. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the reports of how fast a vulnerability can be exploited, and it has gone from weeks, days, months \u2014 now we\u2019re down to minutes.\u201d\u00a0AI-fueled cyber attacks have already spiked the number of threats facing Missouri and other states. Ivy says his state faced 22 billion perimeter requests during a recent month, the highest volume within such a time frame.\u00a0\u201cAnd I have no doubt that is partly because AI is being used,\u201d he says.\u00a0HOW AI ADVANCEMENTS FUEL CYBER THREATS TO GOVERNMENTOmer Dembinsky, data research group manager for Check Point Software Technologies, a cybersecurity company with public-sector clients, focuses on analyzing broad cybersecurity trends rather than individual attacks. He and his colleagues examine patterns in the volume and types of threats across global networks as well as how criminals are using AI.Dembinsky says criminals are now using agents to scan the Internet for live hosts, exposed services, unsupported software and configuration weaknesses. They are also using AI to create dossiers on potential victims and to pinpoint high-value targets. While phishing and ransomware remain the mode of choice for attackers, they are also getting faster. Cyber gangs can now increase the speed at which they deploy convincing email campaigns, register spoof websites and build out their own infrastructures.\u201cIn many ways, these groups operate like tech companies with recruiters, internal communications and research and development \u2014 except their products are designed to harm rather than help,\u201d Dembinsky says.The threat landscape had grown larger even before the recent acceleration in AI technologies, because of hybrid work, distributed devices, cloud adoption and third-party software, among other factors. When computers are used for everything, there are just more potential entry points for cyber criminals. It’s a stark contrast from decades past, when perimeter threats were the norm. AI has now broadened the attack surface again, with the introduction of chatbots, AI-assisted coding tools and unauthorized AI use, which can lead to security gaps, data leaks or prompt manipulation.\u201cEverything\u2019s connected to the Internet \u2014 your doorbell, your Alexa, your TV, so we\u2019ve got an expanding attack surface that can be targeted by people anywhere in the world at any time of day or night,\u201d says Michael Geraghty, state CISO and director of the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integrations Cell. \u201cThat attack surface? Gigantic.\u201dAnd so public-sector cybersecurity leaders are feeling more strained than ever. In fact, a recent biennial cyber report from the National Association of Chief Information Officers found that the number of CISOs who said they were \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cextremely\u201d confident in their ability to protect data dropped from 48 percent in 2022 to 22 percent in 2026. The reasons range from budget constraints and reduced federal support to heavier workloads. Many also balance more collaboration demands alongside ongoing modernization efforts.This shows up across agencies, says Aaron Rose, who like Dembinsky is part of Check Point. Rose is a security architect manager who works with federal and public-sector clients, and he says smaller public-sector organizations are often high-value targets without the resources to match. That imbalance can have lasting consequences. In sectors like K-12 education or local government, a breach can expose deeply personal data \u2014 and once it\u2019s out, it cannot be fully recovered.The tactics have evolved, but the underlying crime hasn\u2019t. It just hits faster and can reach farther than ever before.USING AI TO DEFEND AGAINST CYBER ATTACKSMissouri CISO Ivy remembers a time when cybersecurity was a nine-to-five job with on-call work.Today, however, threat monitoring is a 24-hour operation, handling multiple lanes while using next-generation endpoint protections. Attackers don\u2019t sleep, and with AI tools in play, large cyber assaults can now unfold in minutes.A report from Booz Allen Hamilton found earlier this year that cyber criminals are moving from initial access to broader system compromise in fewer than 30 minutes with the help of AI. Frontier AI models \u2014 including Anthropic\u2019s Mythos, which made national headlines this spring for its potential to supercharge cybersecurity threats \u2014 also enable small groups to carry out campaigns that used to require larger, coordinated efforts. AI-assisted scanning has compressed the window between finding weaknesses and exploiting them, forcing agencies to monitor systems more continuously than in the past.\u201cThe rate at which vulnerabilities are exploited is getting smaller and smaller, so we\u2019ve actually moved to real-time scanning of our devices,\u201d Kansas Chief IT Officer Jeff Maxon says. \u201cIf we just focused on once-a-month scanning, we would be exposed to a lot more vulnerabilities.\u201dAnd they can use AI, in part, to do that. In large organizations that monitor multiple agencies, AI can correlate activity across systems and identify anomalies quickly. Missouri\u2019s cybersecurity office works with 17 agencies and ingests roughly 3.5 terabytes of cybersecurity logs daily, making it impossible for one human analyst to review everything. Humans see events, but AI sees patterns in real time, Ivy says.A recent report from Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), The ‘AI Vulnerability Storm,’ advises leaders to expect more incidents and prepare with a combination of traditional and AI-enhanced security. The authors encourage using large language models for vulnerability discovery, updating risk metrics to reflect new challenges. They also recommend adopting coding agents to accelerate security operations.\u2018Everything Old Is New Again\u2019Traditional security measures remain as relevant as ever, too. As AI increases the volume and power of threats, it\u2019s important for defenders to stay vigilant with long-standing cybersecurity best practices. These include patch management, identity and access management, network segmentation, and guidance from leading defense organizations, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal government\u2019s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or sector-specific advising bodies.Patching is a must, says New Jersey CISO Geraghty, and it always has been. The vulnerability management timeline, however, has changed drastically, and AI platforms are revealing layers of vulnerabilities, some dating back more than two decades. Geraghty says that even with patch cycles being a regular part of cybersecurity, they depend on prioritization and manpower. Also, missed updates are not uncommon for any organization.Ignoring updates has always created problems for cybersecurity, and it\u2019s more pressing these days as cyber criminals can now scan environments at AI speed with a mind to attack immediately upon finding a gap.\u201cFundamentals come into play, whether it\u2019s an AI supercharged attacker or just regular abuse,\u201d Geraghty says. \u201cMaking sure you\u2019re patching the system, making sure you have strong password management and multifactor authentication, making sure you\u2019re not exposing risky services, making sure your cloud configuration is on lockdown. All the good cyber hygiene comes into play.\u201dOr, in brief, Geraghty says, \u201cEverything old is new again.\u201dTake for example compromised credentials. This is a tactic dating back decades, and it remains one of the primary ways attackers gain access to systems. It\u2019s at the heart of phishing attacks, wherein a staffer might get an email that looks legitimate, requesting they share their login credentials. The way to combat this is by training members of organizations to spot and report phishing emails, teaching them to change their behaviors.\u201cWe knew about this back in 1987, and we keep saying we need to do it,\u201d Geraghty says. \u201cIt takes a long, long time for people to actually change their behavior. But we have to do that, and AI is going to force us to accelerate changing those behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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