How organisations can prepare for the AI Cyber landscape
Speaker
Lisa Ventura MBE
Agenda
1:00pm - Introduction and welcome to the event
1:05pm - Talk "Hackers, Bias, and Bots: The AI Cyber Storm" by Lisa Ventura MBE
1:35pm - Questions and Answers
2:00pm - Close
Synopsis
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the cyber threat landscape, but not always in the ways we expect.
Hackers are leveraging AI to craft flawless phishing campaigns, generate polymorphic malware, and even clone voices and faces for high-impact social engineering attacks. At the same time, defenders face an often-overlooked challenge: bias in AI systems. Skewed data and flawed assumptions don’t just create ethical problems; they create exploitable blind spots that attackers can weaponise.
In this talk, Lisa Ventura MBE FCIIS explores how AI is empowering both attackers and defenders, why bias in AI is a hidden attack surface, and what organisations can do today to prepare for the coming AI cyber storm.
Key Takeaways
- AI has supercharged phishing and malware: attackers no longer need to be skilled coders, just skilled prompt engineers.
- Bias in AI is more than an ethical issue: every bias is a blind spot that hackers can exploit.
- Defenders must fight AI with AI: but success depends on diverse training data, explainable models, and human-in-the-loop strategies.
- The cyber battle is asymmetric: hackers only need one exploit; defenders need continuous vigilance against both technical and systemic weaknesses.
This talk will include an interactive demo of AI-generated phishing vs. old-school phishing) and end with this bold statement: “AI won’t replace hackers — but hackers using AI will replace hackers who don’t.”
About the speaker
Lisa Ventura MBE is a Cyber Security professional, who has developed a career in Cyber Security and has spoken at different events (being a keynote speaker).
Lisa has also instigated and participated in events and initiatives to help encourage diversity, inclusion and mental health within the cyber and tech communities, including organising B-Sides Birmingham back in May 2025, which was a huge success.
Lisa is the Chief Executive and Founder of the AI and Cyber Security Association (AICSA), and is interested in sharing her knowledge and experience in how AI is transforming the cyber threat landscape and how testers can learn and adapt to these challenges.
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