Defending Against Hidden Risks of AI Tools in the Workplace - ThreatLocker

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Overview

In this CISO Inspired Summit masterclass, recorded at Carton House, Ireland, in September 2026, Seamus Lennon, VP of Operations EMEA at ThreatLocker, explains how AI has changed the game for attackers. Vulnerabilities are being found and disclosed faster than ever, and anyone can now produce working malware with a little help from an AI tool.

Seamus shares live examples, including ChatGPT handing over remote access code once a request is reworded, an agentic AI tool encrypting and deleting files in a pattern it recognised as ransomware, AI malware detection fooled by a single comment in a script, and an AI-generated phishing campaign that captured passwords and MFA codes from security engineers. He then sets out how a Zero Trust approach limits the damage.

Key takeaways

  • A zero-day once took around 128 days to patch; with AI helping attackers, vulnerabilities are now found and exploited far faster, so waiting to patch is no longer enough.
  • Application allowlisting can block unapproved AI tools and browser extensions from running in the first place.
  • Ringfencing limits what approved tools can access, so trusted applications cannot be turned against the rest of the estate.
  • Storage control and web content filtering reduce the data AI tools and malicious sites can reach.
  • Zero Trust cloud access means stolen usernames, passwords and even MFA codes cannot be used to log in from an unprotected device.

Watch the full session on YouTube: Defending against hidden risks of AI tools in the workplace

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