If you can’t combat threats in real-time, you’ve already lost: Palo Alto Networks CIO Meerah Rajavel
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has reshaped the security landscape for companies with a sharp rise in the sophistication and number of attacks, and the speed at which they are executed. "The time attackers take to execute has drastically reduced.
In 2021, the average attack took nine days to develop. Today, it’s just three hours," chief information officer (CIO) of Palo Alto Networks, Meerah Rajavel, told Mint in an interview. “Now, tools like generative AI (GenAI) allow even novice attackers to craft an attack almost instantly.
They don’t need expertise—just a prompt to generate malicious code," she added, insisting this is a “nightmare" for security personnel. Similarly, dwell times—where attackers linger before extracting data—have shrunk from weeks to mere hours. Rajavel recounted a healthcare breach where attackers extracted terabytes of data in just 25 minutes.
Also, attackers now use AI to craft sophisticated phishing emails or deepfakes. "Imagine receiving a convincing call from someone pretending to be a loved one in distress, or a CFO (chief financial officer) on a Zoom call instructing an employee to transfer funds. These threats are no longer hypothetical—they’re happening now," Rajavel said, underscoring how GenAI has made such attacks more accessible.
"If you can’t combat threats, or protect your assets, in real time, you’ve already lost," Rajavel asserted. "When attackers are leveraging AI, we can’t rely on traditional defences. We must combat AI with AI," she added.
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