Fight AI with AI, Thales CEO tells cybersecurity gathering

By Florence Loeve

PARIS, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The head of Europe's largest defence technology firm, France's Thales TCFP.PA, called for greater investment in AI-powered defences to keep pace with a "frightening" increase in cyberattacks enhanced by artificial intelligence.

AI enables attackers to operate faster and launch sophisticated attacks more easily, while some models are gaining autonomy to operate without human supervision, Caine told customers at an event to showcase cybersecurity tools.

But the same technology "is also an opportunity, reciprocally, to be used by defenders, by the good guys. And that gets far less attention, unfortunately", he added.

Caine was presenting new cybersecurity tools including software protection against AI-powered attacks or a partnership with Google Cloud to help companies work safely with AI.

The increased marketing push for AI defences comes as warnings about the social and economic risks posed by AI have gathered pace.

"It's just frightening to see at what speed these cyberattacks increase every day, every month, every year," Caine said.

STATE ACTORS

The French CEO, whose company equips fighters and airliners with radar and is also increasingly a European player in cybersecurity, said the nature of attackers had also changed.

"It's also state actors that launch cyberattacks, not only on governmental institutions and organisations, but also on private companies, in particular when those companies are supposed to run critical services."

AI researchers have grappled with security concerns for years but public attention has spiralled since July, when OpenAI agents broke out of their testing arena and hacked AI firm Hugging Face.

In September, executives from OpenAI and Anthropic declared that AI could lead to the extinction of humanity.

Since then, the debate over how to balance safety with progress in ​AI has divided the tech industry and become a global political issue.

European governments are concerned about Russia's intensified attempts at sabotage, cyberattacks and other so-called hybrid attacks across the continent to undermine support for Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly denied it is behind such attacks.

"AI can be used to protect, to defend and protect yourself, using the same scale and same speed that attackers use to attack", Caine said.