Harman Kaur is the Vice President of AI at Tanium, a pacesetter in Autonomous Endpoint Administration (AEM) with the trade’s solely true real-time platform for AI. She brings over a decade of expertise in management, technical innovation, and cybersecurity, gained by her tenure at Tanium and repair within the US Air Drive.
In her earlier position as Chief of Workers at Tanium, Kaur labored carefully with the Government Chairman, CEO, and govt staff to drive strategic progress, know-how alliances, and organizational execution, leveraging her deep experience in cybersecurity and IT.
Earlier, Kaur held a number of roles inside Tanium’s discipline engineering group, the place she managed key accounts and contributed to product growth and innovation, furthering the corporate’s mission to supply cutting-edge options for endpoint administration.
What initially sparked your curiosity in AI and cybersecurity, and the way did that zeal evolve right into a profession that led you to turn out to be VP of AI at Tanium?
I joined the navy once I was 18 for the chance to construct a life the way in which that I needed to do it. That allowed me the chance to review completely different fields like regulation, earlier than assembly a mentor who impressed me to discover ways to use computer systems. That modified my life. I ended up getting a level which was a mixture of Laptop Science and Enterprise. Then, with that have, I labored in a cyber intelligence navy unit. That jump-started my profession and led me to work at Tanium when it was nonetheless a startup.
Since then, I’ve worn many alternative hats at Tanium. I’ve labored in technical roles and been Chief of Workers for our Chairman and CEO. Finally, my curiosity in constructing new merchandise with rising and new applied sciences is what drew me to my present position.
Whilst you can research cybersecurity and AI in class, these of us who discover ourselves in these areas or who’re inquisitive about them should carve our personal paths. It’s a discipline the place all of us convey completely different backgrounds and experience to the desk, and what actually units you aside is the way you apply that context and information.
How does your twin expertise within the navy and AI intersect when it comes to decision-making, management, and problem-solving?
My twin expertise within the navy and AI intersects in decision-making, management, and problem-solving. Within the navy, I honed the flexibility to make fast, strategic choices beneath strain, working in numerous settings like hospitals, upkeep and flying models, cyber, and even on employees for Generals. At Tanium, I’ve centered on constructing groups, merchandise, and partnerships, which requires a extra analytical method. This mix of experiences provides me a novel perspective and the boldness to beat any problem.
You’ve talked about that automation will likely be important for cybersecurity groups by 2025. What particular developments do you foresee making automation indispensable within the coming years?
By itself, automation helps a company scale cybersecurity practices. The extra we undertake extra gadgets, software program and methods, the extra automation can improve and constantly implement safety insurance policies throughout giant environments whereas figuring out patterns to create higher, extra proactive protection.
Automation additionally supplies vital insights into working methods by higher knowledge aggregation. This enables our safety groups to optimize their insurance policies at a time when know-how is continually altering and introducing new threats.
AI takes automation capabilities to a brand new stage. The mixture of the 2 permits organizations to deal with repetitive, mundane duties in order that human cybersecurity consultants can deal with high-impact work. Coupled with real-time knowledge on a company’s working setting because it appears at the moment, AI and automation can detect threats and remediate points quicker than earlier than.
In your view, what’s probably the most vital impediment for corporations aiming to implement automation of their cybersecurity practices, and the way can they put together to beat it?
Organizations have to contemplate the dangers this know-how introduces, particularly in the case of id and authentication. They’ll want to contemplate the way to deal with these new threats related to automation. They’ll additionally have to introduce sturdy governance mechanisms and clear suggestions loops in order that safety groups can monitor what AI and automation are literally doing, adjusting insurance policies as wanted.
What developments in AI will Tanium be pursuing to boost endpoint safety in 2025? Might you elaborate on the position of automation and AI in autonomous endpoint administration?
With autonomous endpoint administration, or AEM, we’re automating each core IT workflow: endpoint administration, certain, but in addition safety, incident response, patching, change administration, and efficiency monitoring. Automated methods can maintain the mundane, repetitive work concerned in these processes. Then, we’re coupling our unmatched skill to supply real-time knowledge on a company’s working setting with AI that may floor vital insights on actual threats and vulnerabilities as they’re occurring and steps for remediation. Our aim, so to talk, is to show the keys of the mundane duties over to automation and let AI deal with risk detection in order that cybersecurity groups can deal with executing on remediation quicker. Their belief within the product empowers them to deal with business-critical work.
By way of what we’re pursuing in 2025, first, we’ll proceed to spend money on higher automation. We need to push boundaries and make automation much more of a pressure multiplier than it already is in addition to constructing brokers. We’re pondering: How can we make it greater? How can we make it so sturdy and so easy that our human cybersecurity groups can focus much less on the mundane work and extra on the high-impact work?
We’ll additionally increase to prioritize visibility into proactive cybersecurity. We need to give our clients visibility into issues earlier than they go improper. That, together with utilizing knowledge for higher decision-making, is a significant focus for us. We need to give actionable suggestions that organizations can take earlier than they’re impacted by the following large vulnerability.
Why is real-time knowledge vital to creating AI in safety efficient? How does Tanium guarantee its AI capabilities are genuinely leveraging real-time knowledge?
AI helps us improve productiveness and do issues quicker. Nonetheless, there’s a stage of hesitation with this know-how. Organizations need to be certain that they’ll belief the outcomes and people outcomes should be actionable. Actual-time knowledge is an unbelievable validation device and enabler of motion. Having the ability to discover points after they occur and utilizing that data to make sure they don’t occur once more is useful, however with the ability to discover points as they occur and remediating these points in real-time with the context of your precise working setting because it appears like at the moment is a superpower – and the way forward for cybersecurity.
With Tanium, real-time knowledge permits you to work together along with your endpoints and put AI’s information to work. It provides actions primarily based on historic and present knowledge and learnings to attract conclusions for the long run. We do that with our endpoint administration agent, which constantly collects and transmits knowledge to a centralized supply of reality, no matter whether or not the machine is on-line or offline. Our Tanium Knowledge Service collects data constantly and robotically from the registered sensors of all endpoints. That ensures the information that our AI capabilities are utilizing is genuinely real-time knowledge.
What ought to corporations consider when choosing AI-driven safety suppliers to make sure they’re getting sturdy, real-time options?
First, organizations ought to interact with as many suppliers as potential. Everyone seems to be investing in AI proper now. There isn’t a standardized, one-size-fits-all resolution to utilizing this know-how, and it’s price investigating all of the completely different approaches to AI.
Secondly, organizations want to grasp the place they need to focus. Whether or not it’s worker productiveness, quicker coding, note-taking, or higher parameter safety, they want to determine their highest precedence fairly than attempting to boil the ocean.
After aligning on that, it’s necessary to create a framework round onboarding. Merely shopping for an answer and turning it on received’t work, even when a vendor says it should. Safety groups want to consider entry management and knowledge coverage. AI requires considerably extra onboarding than earlier instruments, and most organizations might want to create the processes for that nicely forward of implementation.
Might you present a imaginative and prescient for Tanium’s roadmap, significantly the way it goals to attain autonomous endpoint administration and streamline complicated IT environments?
Already, AEM is delivering autonomous capabilities throughout our current platform. Utilizing real-time knowledge and insights from thousands and thousands of endpoints, we share suggestions and allow organizations to automate adjustments on these endpoints to allow them to streamline their operations and enhance safety wholesale. AEM is a complete platform, and it empowers our clients to take motion on the proper time and to have faith of their choices, that are primarily based on real-time, scaled knowledge.
That’s the place we’re proper now, however we’re not completed. We now have plans for the way we’ll proceed to sort out complicated cybersecurity issues. Transferring ahead, we’re specializing in the convergence of two issues to bolster cybersecurity: AI and IT operations. Loads of suppliers mix AI and safety, and we’re doing the identical already, however we additionally need to be the gold customary for AI in IT operations. Personally, I’d prefer to see each single Tanium buyer have not less than one course of they’ve totally automated. Hopefully, that first step may help them construct a basis for automating their processes even additional.
How does Tanium’s platform handle the visibility and management challenges that many organizations face as their digital environments increase?
The largest hurdle for a company is complete visibility— realizing what gadgets are in your group and plugged into your community.
That is one thing we’re already addressing with Tanium. Our core energy is real-time visibility and interplay with gadgets throughout a company’s digital ecosystem. We may help you see what apps you’re operating and collect details about each machine in simply seconds. That stage of connectivity and real-time entry to knowledge from all endpoints enhances each visibility and management, that are once more challenges for organizations as we see digital environments increase considerably. It’s our mission to get rid of these issues.
We take that mission a step additional by empowering organizations to make a change, such patching a machine, in a matter of minutes. Tanium permits organizations to work together with their whole digital property at scale. For instance, if there’s a safety incident, they’ll see what occurred in real-time and take motion instantly, so clients don’t even really feel the influence. It’s fast and it’s seamless.
What recommendation would you give to aspiring professionals, particularly girls, trying to pursue a profession in AI and cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity and AI are giant fields so strive quite a lot of various things. These fields can even really feel very intimidating however keep in mind everyone seems to be attempting to determine it out. That will help you construct confidence my recommendation for anybody, not simply girls, is to determine what abilities are lacking on a staff and work in the direction of filling that hole. Filling within the gaps may help construct confidence in your self as an issue solver whereas additionally making you indispensable.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Tanium.
