Cybersecurity, pending subject

At the Davos Forum, the meeting of global economic and political elites held every January in the Swiss city, one of the main concerns on the table has long been cybersecurity. Tools are needed to combat one of the great threats to networks and technological systems. And the CEOs of large companies are aware of this and are investing in it. It is more difficult for SMEs, which have fewer capabilities and resources to deal with these threats.

Artificial intelligence (AI), which has come to stay, because of its power is essential for finding gaps and vulnerabilities through which pirates and hackers can enter and commit all kinds of mischief. There is a risk that they could control websites and servers remotely, bypassing all kinds of security barriers. One of the problems is that, at the moment, potential criminals master this tool more than those who are supposed to control them. The challenge consists of turning this around by improving the use of AI itself, but not to commit crimes, rather to stop them, or better said, to anticipate them.

The most recent episode, which has led several governments in Europe and other parts of the world to preventively paralyze websites and applications to avoid hacker attacks, is proof that we need to improve the control of cybercrime, perhaps with a global police force. Such a drastic decision was applied after two serious vulnerabilities were disclosed in PHP, which is a programming language used by a large part of internet pages worldwide. It is estimated that it accounts for around 75% of the total. The public disclosure of these vulnerabilities forced preventive measures to avoid theft of important data or the very control of websites.

The developing companies have urged all users to perform updates immediately and have alerted that some hackers were already exploiting the flaws. One of the first to warn was the PHP Foundation, the entity that oversees the development and maintenance of the software. Cybersecurity agencies in Europe, the United States, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom urged PHP users to update their systems or disconnect them until the updates are applied. It is essential to avoid a wave of intrusions, because AI tools can reverse-engineer the error very easily.

The gaps or vulnerabilities in the most widely used language applied to websites and applications began to be known and detected some time ago, but they were kept hidden. There was no awareness of the future dangers that might be encountered. The problem is that, according to experts and analysts, AI finds it very easy to take advantage of actions and possibilities that are very complicated for a human hacker to exploit. Now it is a matter of governments, agencies, and institutions winning the race against cybercriminals.