Outpacing Machine-Speed Threats: Defending Higher Education Against AI-Accelerated Attacks

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 | 4:30PM–5:30PM MT
Session Type: Poster Session
Delivery Format: Poster Session
Adversaries are weaponizing AI, collapsing attack lifecycles from days to minutes. With 72% of exploits now AI-generated and threats emerging within 15 minutes of disclosure, legacy, human-speed SOCs are obsolete. Higher Education faces unique risks: decentralized networks, open research environments, and the rapid adoption of "vibe coding" tools and browser extensions. This unmanaged surface creates critical data exposure and unenforceable policies. To close this speed gap without hindering academic freedom, institutions must transition to an integrated, platform-based AI defense. This session outlines a modern blueprint anchored by four pillars: 1) AI-Driven Real-Time SecOps: Unifies telemetry to eliminate 99% of alert noise, isolating hosts in under 60 seconds with sub-5-minute MTTD/MTTR. 2) Agentic Endpoint & AI Governance: Turns policy into technical enforcement, blocking malicious commands and data leaks in real-time. 3) Attack Surface Management: Automatically discovers assets and maps attack-path reachability across complex academic and medical networks. 4) AI Supply Chain Security: Pre-scans AI models and code dependencies to remediate exposures before weaponization. Attendees will learn how an integrated AI platform enables lean security teams to outpace machine-speed threats, achieving sub-30-second automated triage and 85%+ incident resolution.

Presenters

  • Eric Dominguez

    Cortex District Sales Manager - SLED West & Central, Palo Alto Networks

  • Carl Kishel

    Sr Manager, Unit 42 Business Development, Palo Alto Networks

  • Patrick Loughlin

    Next Generation Security, SLED Leader, Palo Alto Networks