Agentic AI and Cybersecurity: Threats, Governance, and Strategy

{ "name": "Agentic AI and Cybersecurity: Threats, Governance, and Strategy", "description": "The same capabilities that make AI valuable for cybersecurity, including autonomous operation, rapid decision-making at scale, and minimal human oversight, are also the ones most likely to cause harm. These risks are further complicated by gaps in existing legal and policy frameworks, making regulation and accountability particularly challenging.This panel discussion will drill down on several questions at the heart of this paradox: what does agentic AI mean for the threat landscape and offense\/defense balance in cybersecurity; how should defenders think about the opportunities and drawbacks of employing agentic systems; and who bears liability when AI causes or fails to prevent a breach?This is a hybrid event. Please be sure to RSVP for in-person attendance (Harvard ID holders only), or register to join on Zoom. Lunch will be served for in-person attendees. SpeakersJames Mickens is an associate professor of computer science at Harvard University. His research focuses on the performance, security, and robustness of large-scale distributed web services. For example, his Riverbed project explores how to use trusted hardware and new OS interfaces to allow users to constrain how datacenters manipulate sensitive data. Mickens received a B.S. degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan. Before coming to Harvard, he spent six years as a researcher at Microsoft, and a semester as a visiting professor at MIT.Josephine Wolff is a professor of cybersecurity policy at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Her research interests include liability for cybersecurity incidents, cyber-insurance, government responses to cyberattacks, and the economics of information security. She is the author of two books: \"You'll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches\" (MIT Press, 2018) and \"Cyberinsurance Policy: Rethinking Risk in an Age of Ransomware, Computer Fraud, Data Breaches, and Cyberattacks\" (MIT Press, 2022). Her writing on cybersecurity has also appeared in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Wired. Prior to joining Fletcher, she was an assistant professor of public policy and computing security at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at the New America Cybersecurity Initiative and Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.Robert Knake is a Venture Partner at Paladin Capital Group and a widely recognized expert on cybersecurity. Rob served as the first Deputy National Cyber Director for Strategy and Budget in the newly created Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House from 2022 to 2023. In that role, he helped to standup the organization and led the development of the National Cybersecurity Strategy. He also led the development of the first ever cybersecurity budget priorities for the Federal government among other initiatives. In previous government service, Rob served from 2011 to 2015 as Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the National Security Council. In this role, he was responsible for the development of Presidential policy on cybersecurity, and built and managed Federal processes for cyber incident response and vulnerability management. He has co-authored two books on cybersecurity with Richard Clarke, Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. He has testified before Congress four times. He holds a Master\u2019s in Public Policy from Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School of Government and undergraduate degrees in history and government from Connecticut College and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Fred Heiding (Moderator) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center\u2019s Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy (DETS) program at Harvard Kennedy School. His work focuses on computer security at the intersection of technical capabilities, business implications, and policy remediations. Fred is a member of the World Economic Forum's Cybercrime Center and is on the organizing committee of the Technology and National Security Conference. He is a teaching fellow for the Generative AI course at Harvard Business School and the National and International Security course at the Harvard Kennedy School. Fred has been invited to brief the US House and Senate staff in DC on the rising dangers of AI-powered cyberattacks, and he leads the cybersecurity division of the Harvard AI Safety Student Team (HAISST). His work has been presented at leading conferences, including Black Hat, Defcon, and BSides, and leading academic journals like IEEE Access and professional journals like Harvard Business Review and Politico. He has assisted in the discovery of more than 45 critical computer vulnerabilities (CVEs). In early 2022, Fred got media attention for hacking the King of Sweden and the Swedish European Commissioner.SponsorThis event is generously supported by Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe LLP through the Orrick Colloquium on CyberSecurity\/CyberLaw at Harvard Law School.", "startDate": "2026-04-03", "endDate": "2026-04-03", "startTime": "12:20", "endTime": "13:20", "location": "1557 Massachusetts Ave., , 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA, 02138, US", "label": "Add to Calendar", "options": [ "Apple", "Google", "iCal", "Microsoft365", "MicrosoftTeams", "Yahoo" ], "timeZone": "US/Eastern", "trigger": "click", "inline": true, "listStyle": "modal", "iCalFileName": "Event 304767" }