As a security professional and leader for over twenty years, I’ve witnessed the industry evolve many times over. But this time is different. Cybersecurity is rushing into a new frontier — one rife with opportunity and risk with the rise of generative AI. In Splunk’s 2024 State of Security Report, we found that many CISOs and practitioners are blazing this trail without looking back. But they’re also not sure what’s ahead, given new compliance regulations and their impact on CISO accountability.
In today’s cyber environment, we expect security professionals to explore how generative AI can empower their resilience journey — and with a staggering 93% of respondents claiming adoption, many already see it as a critical point of innovation. They’re using generative AI to build better cyber defenses, execute more informed decisions, and fill critical skills gaps. At the same time, at least one-third of respondents have no generative AI policies. And their biggest reported fear? AI-powered attacks.
Meanwhile, more punitive incident reporting rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the E.U.’s NIS2 are holding the CISO community to greater accountability. But we believe security professionals will also discover new opportunities to reshape their roles and teams. For CISOs, that means asserting priorities in the boardroom, and for security practitioners, it calls for tighter collaboration with ITOps, engineering, and cloud teams to expand visibility, minimize response times, and take resilience to new levels.
While security professionals continue to forge this new path, at Splunk we are excited about the potential of generative AI for defenders and encouraged by how quickly security priorities are becoming business priorities.