Derek Manky, chief of security insights for global threat alliances at Fortinet, made the comments at a virtual conference sponsored by the Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence as well as Israel Defense.

He sa id his company has five million devices constantly collecting cyber threat intelligence data around the world, while working with NATO, INTERPOL and other major national and global security agencies.

Manky sa id they also use new AI technologies and strategies including computer “Game Boards” and “heat maps” to chart out ongoing cyber attacks so that they can advise clients how grave the attack is.

His company is able to do this by using AI to chart out specific hackers’ tactics and typical time frames for collecting and invading less important systems before they try to penetrate into more critical systems.

Targeted networks would prefer to never be penetrated, using this AI-based threat evaluator allows them to divert their key resources only to penetrations which are the most serious, while investing more limited resources in combating lower-grade cyber intrusions.

Manky sa id that just over the horizon their AI models should be able to predict from attackers’ patterns, not only the time frame of attacks once started, but even to guess future likely victims before they occur.

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The conference also included a range of former top idF intelligence officials, such as conference chair Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser.

Former idF intelligence Col. (res.) Itai Shapira explained how new technologies like AI were both killing the old way of performing intelligence gathering and analysis, while providing a new basis for reinventing the medium.

He sa id that, “AI is not a new technology for one part [of the intelligence process] but something which advances connections between all the different intelligence disciplines.”

Shapira sa id that AI would not only create opportunities to leap forward in efficiencies in gathering intelligence, but also in reframing how and when different intelligence processes and decisions should take place.

His prediction was that within around a decade, the entire intelligence arena would be transformed.

Dr. Ehud Eran, a senior fellow at the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center (IICC) and a professor at Haifa University, sa id that AI’s real potential still has not been realized.

He sa id that to date, most AI achievements have been at the tactical intelligence level.

In the future, he predicted AI could change the way intelligence communities and countries view and address the world strategically.

He recommended a more radical disruption of the traditional intelligence process in order to rebuild it even better with AI.

Dr. Shay Hershkovitz, a senior fellow at IICC, sa id that another important lesson already learned from developments in AI, would be a change in who would work in the intelligence community in the future.

Basically, he sa id that future recruits for the intelligence community needed to be as tech savvy as they were capable in becoming experts in analyzing foreign national security issues.

This would be a major departure from past eras where tech savvy recruits were limited to small numbers in a practically segregated and separated small technology department.