Airplanes grounded, banks closed, hospitals shut down for multiple days on end. These catastrophes happened because of a faulty update from a well known cybersecurity company this summer called Crowdstrike, and led to widespread system crashes on Microsoft Window devices impacting millions of users and causing significant disruptions. This shutdown caused multiple issues with national computer systems, and various branches of federal agencies. The country is still trying to recover, and it showed a major flaw with our current system of cybersecurity. 

The federal government needs to start restricting their involvement in cybersecurity and begin looking for new alternatives such as Generative AI to help keep the nation safe. 

Even though it is essential for the federal government to use cybersecurity to protect domestic infrastructure, citizens, and private businesses from these cyber threats, having the government engage in excessive cybersecurity involvement could be seen as an infringement on the privacy rights of those people and companies. 

By shrinking the federal government’s involvement in business’s cybersecurity matters, we would allow the business to take control and be better prepared for a day when the government can not step in.

The federal government cannot provide the types of technologies and workers that private companies or sectors could. The government does not have the funding nor the ability to due to their strict regulations and standards that private establishments do not have to comply with. 

Those that oppose would say that cybersecurity is strongly needed and that limiting it could result in all sorts of new issues to arise. As well as the fact that private companies who may not have to comply with the same rules or standards as the federal government would be able to go uncontrolled and may cause catastrophic damage or issues to the data. 

This is where the federal government or private companies could introduce  Generative AI as an addition to cybersecurity.This AI would be able to stimulate scenarios to better prepare for issues like this. Plus, it can work on more complex issues than humans in a faster amount of time and can identify threats before most humans can. AI cannot be bribed, threatened, taken, or changed.

People on the other hand can.There’s even evidence to show that people cannot be trusted with the security of the country. In fact, only 4% of organizations felt confident in their current systems keeping users’ information safe. There has also been a 75% increase in the number of cloud intrusions over the last year. In a poll conducted in a New York office showed that 41% of the respondents said that they have already taken sensitive information with them to a new position.

So, how can we fully support and  trust cybersecurity companies, if employees are admitting that they are taking sensitive, personal information or data.Truth is that you can’t, and that’s why it’s time for the federal government to limit their involvement in cybersecurity and focus on finding a better plan.