[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] "AI is shortening the time from finding vulnerabilities to launching attacks. Defenders working at human speed lose the race,"

Anne Neuberger (앤 뉴버거), a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) who served as the White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies from 2021 to 2025, stressed the point in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Nov. 12. She argued that defence systems for critical infrastructure such as banks, hospitals, and power and water must be changed quickly.

She also cited the hacking of refrigerators at hundreds of supermarkets in France last month. The incident raised temperatures in commercial refrigerators, spoiling food, and caused at least 15 fires. Grocery stores in nine other European countries were also attacked through early November.

She said pumps, valves and substations in U.S. water systems and power grids also operate based on internet-connected controllers like refrigerators, and called for an active response.

She said there are not many places at the national level that can create risk. They include large power transmission substations, the Fedwire and ACH payment networks, water systems in major cities, core communications networks and 911, and regional trauma centres, along with hundreds of operators and the companies that supply them with equipment and software. Neuberger argued that protecting these first would buy time to fix the rest. "Replacing outdated equipment takes 2 to 5 years, but preventing risks at hundreds of core operators can be done within 12 months," she said.

Regulation could be an obstacle. "Most regulations only look at whether controls are in place. They do not look at how exposed systems are, or how quickly operators block flaws," Neuberger said. She added that supervisory bodies are scattered across the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services, and that there is no place responsible for safety across the whole sector.

She proposed a White House "Super Intelligence Force" as a solution by setting national goals for five areas: power, banking and payments, water, communications and hospitals. The idea is to focus on measuring results rather than paperwork.

"That would mean not exposing control systems to the internet, patching or isolating critical vulnerabilities within days, and proving through drills whether they can endure 72 hours even if IT systems stop," she said. She said operators that meet the goals should receive legal protection in negligence lawsuits, while authorities should examine those that fall short more closely.

Making active use of AI for defence is also a key theme. "Core operators and technology suppliers can work with AI research and development companies to inspect code and firmware to create patches, and pre-test them using digital twins that virtually replicate real facilities," she said. She added that Congress should also pass a 10-year extension because the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which allows companies to share hacking information, expires on Dec. 11.