"Hacker Summer Camp" Recap: Black Hat, DEF CON, and the Growing AI Arms Race

As Vendors Continue to Tout “AI” Capabilities, Let’s Talk About Real AI

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) continued to dominate onsite conversations, and similar to the RSA Conference earlier this year, both legacy and early-stage cybersecurity vendors felt compelled to tout “AI capabilities” in their marketing and booth collateral. But not all AI is created equal, and it sparked a conversation about the differences and nuances in AI technologies.

Many cybersecurity vendors promoted generative AI capabilities that are tacked onto existing technologies, a marketing tactic used to remain relevant in today’s AI conversations. But AI is not their core competency, and it never will be – at the end of the day, their AI explains how you were breached, but doesn’t prevent it.

We challenged booth visitors to ask vendors the hard-hitting questions about AI: Is it built on an archaic framework? Can it be air gapped? Is it the most advanced form of AI (deep learning), or just basic ML? The answers will tell you everything you need to know about vendors’ AI promises.

Deep Instinct is different from any other vendor in the market. Our deep learning (DL) cybersecurity framework prevents and explains unknown zero-day threats, so that security teams can both stop a breach before it happens and learn to predict the next attack. We’re a zero-day data security platform using the most advanced form of AI – developed before AI became a hot topic – to protect storage, applications, and endpoints, so your data remains secure regardless of where it resides.

Proven Prevention: Deep Instinct Wins CRN Award During Black Hat

During Black Hat, Deep Instinct’s Prevention for Storage (DPS) product was recognized by CRN in its 2024 Tech Innovator Awards. From more than 320 applicants, DPS rose to the top. DPS provides data storage threat prevention across NAS and cloud storage environments, preventing >99% of zero-day exploits, ransomware, and unknown threats in these storage repositories.

Highlighting Our Two Speaking Sessions at Black Hat and DEF CON

Capping off a memorable week were our two speaking sessions during Black Hat and DEF CON. First, our CIO and CISO, Carl Froggett, joined our VP of Global Sales Engineering, Brian Black, in a Black Hat session titled, “The Future of Cybersecurity: Embracing Prevention-First Strategies in the Age of Edge AI.” The duo discussed the new era of localized large language models (LLMs) amid the advent of neural processing units (NPUs) and neural engines in devices from Qualcomm and Apple. They also walked attendees through the implications of edge AI and localized LLMs, while highlighting the urgent need for prevention-focused approaches to safeguard against these evolving threats.

Then during DEF CON, Deep Instinct researchers Ron Ben-Yizhak and David Shandalov presented “SHIM Me What You Got - Manipulating Shim and Office for Code Injection,” introducing a novel and stealthy technique to apply malicious shims on a code injection process that does not require registry modification or SDB files and leaves no traces on the disk.

“Hacker summer camp” is always an exciting time, but what made this year even more memorable was the meteoric rise in AI visibility, and discussions centered on how to fight AI with better AI. The answer is deep learning. See for yourself what’s possible by requesting a Deep Instinct demo today.