Expert Keren Elazari: with AI, everyone must think like a hacker

Keren Elazari, an Israeli researcher who has specialized in cybersecurity for more than twenty years and is known online as k3r3n3, became known to a wider audience in 2014 with a TED talk in which she compared hackers to the immune system of the internet: whoever finds a system's vulnerabilities makes it possible to fix them. In an interview given to RSI before an ATED event, Elazari explained why this mindset should now belong to everyone, not just to specialists.

The reason, according to the researcher, is artificial intelligence. Cybercriminals reportedly adopted it first, as early as three years ago, to carry out attacks, while governments and companies only recently began using it to defend themselves. Elazari also notes that even less sophisticated cybercriminals now have access to powerful tools, such as open source models developed in China. This is lowering the barrier to entry into cyberattacks, giving an advantage to bad actors.

How to protect your home network

According to Elazari, by 2026 every household functions like a small data center: phones, computers, televisions, smart air conditioners and sometimes even the refrigerator are connected to the same home internet network. In most families, connected devices now outnumber pets or the people living there.

More devices also mean more entry points for attackers. Elazari suggests three steps: making a written list of all connected devices, using an artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT or Google AI to explain how your home network works, and checking whether your router still uses default usernames and passwords, since in that case anyone could connect to it.

Elazari links this advice to the issue of privacy, which she now describes as "a privilege, not a right anymore." She recounts analyzing her own home network and discovering that even when visiting ordinary sites like eBay, Google or her own bank, tracking data was being sent to TikTok, an application she has never installed. She says intermediary companies exist that collect data on our daily internet use in order to resell it to other companies.

Elazari calls for reflection on what we are willing to give up to the uncontrolled digital spread of our own data. She asks whether information that seems harmless today will still seem so in the future, or to our own children in fifteen or twenty-five years. Information collected online, she notes, remains available indefinitely and can be aggregated and monetized.