Following the White House’s Executive Order on AI, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued its Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence this week “which is a whole-of-agency plan aligned with national AI strategy to address our efforts to: promote the beneficial uses of AI to enhance cybersecurity capabilities, ensure AI systems are protected from cyber-based threats, and deter the malicious use of AI capabilities to threaten the critical infrastructure Americans rely on every day.”

CISA will implement the Roadmap through five lines of effort:

• Effort 1: Responsibly use AI to support our mission.
• Effort 2: Assure AI systems.
• Effort 3: Protect critical infrastructure from malicious use of AI.
• Effort 4: Collaborate and communicate on key AI efforts with the interagency, international partners, and the public.
• Effort 5: Expand AI expertise in our workforce.

Although all of the lines of effort are important, Objective 3.1 is one that is crucial for securing critical infrastructure against new threats posed by AI: “CISA will build on existing structures to advance industry collaboration and coordination around AI security.” At this point, we know threat actors are and will continue to use AI tools to launch cyber-attacks, so it should be a high priority for us to get a handle on those threats, and how to mitigate them, particularly when they are directed at critical infrastructure.

CISA continues to evaluate and provide valuable information to public agencies and private industry. Take a look at the Roadmap to understand how CISA is tackling AI to understand how it may be applicable to your industry.