AI is increasing demand for security engineers, report says

In short: Companies are hiring more security engineers because AI tools are creating more software to protect and new kinds of security risks.

What's going on

Organizations are building and shipping more software because AI coding tools can produce code quickly. More code means more places for attackers to look for mistakes, like adding more doors and windows to a house and then needing more locks.

At the same time, more AI systems are being used in real products and internal tools. This includes chatbots, “copilots” that help workers complete tasks, and automated AI “agents” (software that can take actions for you, like placing an order or updating a database). Many companies also expose internal model APIs, which are access points that let other software talk to an AI model.

These AI systems can create security problems that go beyond traditional app security. Examples include prompt injection, where someone tricks a chatbot with carefully written text, and data leakage, where sensitive information comes out in an AI response. Other risks include poisoned training data (bad information that makes a model behave wrongly), attackers crafting inputs to bypass safeguards, theft of a model, and unsafe connections to tools and plugins.

Because of this, companies are looking for people who can secure cloud systems, control who can access what, and check both human-written and AI-generated code. The push is also creating more demand for specialists focused on AI and machine learning security.

One note of caution, some online discussions mention an Anthropic model called “Mythos,” but that name is not widely confirmed in public information. Anthropic’s best-known model family is Claude.

What to watch

Security teams are increasingly being asked to protect two things at once, the software AI helps create and the AI systems themselves. Hiring and training for these roles is likely to keep rising as more businesses add AI features to everyday work.

Source: NYTimes