Gartner outlines top cybersecurity trends — and (spoiler alert) AI is No. 1

Artificial intelligence will be the leading cybersecurity trend in 2024, analyst firm Gartner has predicted in a new release ahead of its upcoming Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit in Sydney, Australia. And, it said that security leaders need to prepare for the swift evolution of generative AI (GenAI), adding that large language model (LLM) applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, derivative  tools such as Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot for developers, and Google’s Gemini are only the start of its disruption.

Gartner senior director analyst Richard Addiscott said in a statement that Gartner recommends using GenAI only when business stakeholders proactively collaborate to support the foundations for the technology’s ethical, safe, and secure use.

“GenAI is occupying significant headspace of security leaders as another challenge to manage, but also offers an opportunity to harness its capabilities to augment security at an operational level.” 
—Richard Addiscott

Vendors have been doing a lot of GenAI demos, Addiscott said, and many show real promise for security operations and application security (AppSec).

“There’s solid long-term hope for the technology,…