GoKawiilIf there's one thing that AI models are remarkably good at, it's manipulation.
That's according to security researcher Fred Heiding, who spoke with Dark Reading's senior news director, Rob Wright, at the Dark Reading News Desk at Black Hat USA 2026 last month. Heiding, executive director at Menlo Park Intelligence, and former US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, spoke at the conference about their research on AI security.
One of the trends they discussed was how AI enhances cybercriminals' social engineering attacks and scams, which cost US citizens nearly $21 billion last year, according to the FBI's IC3 Report. But Heiding also highlighted how AI technology itself has shown how very effective it is at influencing humans.
This poses a challenge for security teams and society in general because, Heiding says, defenders can leverage AI to counter AI-based technical threats, but we can't use the technology to mitigate manipulation efforts in an effective way.
"You can't just patch me because my brain is old. It's all these old mental heuristics and systems," he said. "So we can't really do it in the same way [with people]. It's asymmetrical."
For all of our Dark Reading News Desk videos, please check out our YouTube channel, and our curated video articles.
Dark Reading News Desk With Fred Heiding: Full Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity using an AI assistant and human editors. For the full experience, please watch the video.
Dark Reading's Rob Wright: Hello and welcome to the Dark Reading News Desk at Black Hat USA 2026 in Las Vegas. I'm Rob Wright, senior news director at Dark Reading, and I am here with Fred Heiding. Fred, welcome.
Fred Heiding: Thank you so much.
... continue reading