S36 Ep13: Steve Durbin - Preparing for AI-Generated Cyber Intrusions

Dec 2, 2025

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In the second part of his interview with journalist Nick Witchell, Steve and Nick delve into the world of AI and cyber. Steve shares his thoughts on autonomous cyber defense and argues that major actors like the ISF, large private enterprises, and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, must lead the way and support small and medium-sized businesses in keeping pace with technological advancements. The two also discuss the future of AI, cautioning that we aren’t as prepared as we need to be…

Key Takeaways:

Small and medium-sized businesses must receive support to stay up-to-date with new technologies.
As more automation is introduced into business operations, understanding of one’s crown jewels and how to protect them is increasingly important.
AI is advancing rapidly with evermore funding, and globally society is not preparing as well as it needs to for what’s to come.

Tune in to hear more about:

Steve’s view on autonomous cyber defense (00:55)
The National Cyber Security Centre and its role in the cyber resilience of UK businesses (3:36)
How AI will impact jobs in cyber (7:55)

Standout Quotes:

“You'll never get me going into an autonomous car. I just won't do it. And people will say, ‘Yes, they're being looked after by some bloke in a tower somewhere who's watching it.” I'm not buying it. I've been working in technology for far too long to know that it is fallible. And so I think we have to really move toward much more transparency in our understanding of where the AI tool is active, the data that it's using, the decisions it's making.” - Steve Durbin
“We are looking for large private enterprise to be working collaboratively with people like the NCSC, with people like the ISF, to really help some of these smaller organizations that don't have the luxury or resources available to them to keep a pace with [technology].” - Steve Durbin
“If you go back to the internet, we didn't do a good enough job of trying to forecast the way in which the internet was going to be used. We put it out there and we said, ‘Let everybody use it and let's see where it goes.” We are doing, I fear, a similar kind of thing with AI.” - Steve Durbin

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From the Information Security Forum, the leading authority on cyber, information security, and risk management.