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AI aids nation-state hackers but also helps US spies to find them, says NSA cyber director


"AI, machine learning [and] deep learning is absolutely making us better at finding malicious activity," said NSA's Rob Joyce.

Joyce, who oversees the NSA’s cybersecurity directorate tasked with preventing and eradicating threats targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and defense systems, did not speak to specific cyberattacks involving the use of AI or attribute particular activity to a state or government. But Joyce said that recent efforts by China-backed hackers to target U.S. critical infrastructure — thought to be in preparation for an anticipated Chinese invasion of Taiwan — was an example of how AI technologies are surfacing malicious activity, giving U.S. intelligence an upper hand. “Machine learning, AI, and big data helps us surface those activities [and] brings them to the fore because those accounts don’t behave like the normal business operators on their critical infrastructure, so that gives us an advantage,” Joyce said.

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