How Cisco Uses AI to Outsmart AI-Powered Threats

How Cisco Uses AI to Outsmart AI-Powered Threats 

The Adversary Is Using AI. Are You? 

Attackers are no longer writing malware line by line. 

They’re feeding generative models with MITRE ATT&CK tactics. They’re using large language models to craft phishing payloads tailored to your geography, your vertical, and your tone. They’re automating reconnaissance, exploiting zero-days faster, and adjusting code in real time, often while your team is still triaging the alert. 

This is not automation. It’s adversarial AI. 

And it forces you to reframe your defence: How do you use AI to detect what AI is now hiding? 

The Cisco AI Security Architecture: Designed to Intercept and Learn

Cisco’s approach is layered and real-time. It’s not about building one big AI engine. It’s about inserting AI where it matters most: 

• At the DNS layer to intercept outbound callbacks 
• At the identity layer, to stop privilege escalation 
• At the network edge to detect lateral movement 
• At the SOC, to reduce dwell time 

Here’s how Cisco does it: 

• Cisco Talos feeds threat intel into every layer — not just indicators, but behavioural heuristics, attacker TTPs, and real-time anomaly baselines. 
• Cisco Secure Access applies ML-based policy enforcement based on location, device trust, time of access, and user risk score. 
• Cisco Duo integrates with EDRs and posture agents to stop compromised identities from accessing systems even if credentials are valid. 
• Cisco Umbrella uses statistical models to detect domain generation algorithms (DGAs), malicious fast-flux hosting, and encrypted callback channels. 
• Cisco XDR correlates telemetry across email, endpoint, cloud, and firewall, and then uses AI to prioritise the incidents with the highest blast radius. 
• Cisco AI Assistant for Security reduces L1 and L2 workload by surfacing the likely root cause, attack path, and mitigation recommendations with source-level context. 

It’s a full attack path prediction. 

From Pattern Recognition to Attack Forecasting 

Most security tools operate with a rearview mirror. AI shifts this. 

Cisco uses supervised and unsupervised learning to baseline activity across your environment. It then trains models to detect: 

• Deviations in account behaviour (e.g., a finance user suddenly accessing Git repositories) 
• Rare DNS queries that resemble sandbox-evasive malware behaviour 
• Cloud workload spikes that don’t match business context 

The result: You detect the path it was trying to take, and not just detect the attack. 

Example: Real-Time Containment of an AI-Augmented Phishing Campaign 

In a recent deployment at a financial firm in Mumbai, Cisco observed a polymorphic phishing campaign that adjusted payload language based on user location and job role. 

Traditional secure email gateways missed it. 

Cisco XDR correlated endpoint behaviour (PowerShell execution from Word), DNS callbacks to high-entropy domains, and cloud IAM role changes, then triggered a playbook that: 

• Isolated the endpoint 
• Revoked Duo sessions 
• Blocked lateral access via ISE policy push 

All within 45 seconds. 

The Hard Numbers 

According to Cisco’s 2024 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, only 3% of Indian enterprises are classified as 'Mature' in AI-integrated security readiness.  

Gartner predicts that by 2026, 60% of threat detection, investigation, and response will rely on AI and ML models, up from 30% in 2022. 

What Most Enterprises Get Wrong 

Many Indian IT leaders assume AI integration means bolt-on analytics or chatbots. 

But AI must work inside your detection stack, not outside it. 

Proactive has deployed Cisco XDR, Duo, Umbrella, and Secure Access in hybrid environments across India, not as isolated tools, but as a feedback-driven, AI-fused security mesh. 

You need: 

• Continuous telemetry from endpoints, users, and apps 
• AI models trained on India-specific threat behaviours (Talos helps here) 
• Response automation that maps to your escalation matrix, not someone else’s playbook 

AI vs AI Is Already Here. Waiting Is Not a Good Strategy. 

You’re not fighting scripts anymore. You’re fighting models. 

The way forward is to embed AI into every detection layer, identity, DNS, endpoint, cloud, and response. 

Cisco provides the architecture. Proactive ensures it reflects your environment. 

Author

Anmol Rawat Marketing Manager