The growing capabilities of AI-powered tools are reducing the expertise and time required to carry out cyberattacks, raising concerns among enterprises about the speed and scale of emerging security threats. Artificial intelligence is changing the cybersecurity landscape by making it easier for individuals with limited technical knowledge to identify and exploit software vulnerabilities.
Marcelo Oliveira, Vice President of Product, Security at Microsoft-owned GitHub, highlighted this growing challenge during an interaction on the sidelines of GitHub Universe 2026.
“In a way, we have democratized hacking to the masses,” Oliveira told Moneycontrol.
He explained that AI is becoming increasingly effective at identifying software vulnerabilities and developing ways to exploit them. This is significantly lowering the technical barriers that previously made certain cyberattacks difficult to execute.
The time available for organisations to respond to security threats is also shrinking. According to Oliveira, the gap between the public disclosure of a software vulnerability and its exploitation, which earlier could extend over several months, has reduced to just a few hours in some cases. There have also been instances where attackers exploited vulnerabilities even before they were publicly disclosed.
“The volume of code, the volume of vulnerabilities is skyrocketing and your ability to respond has completely collapsed in terms of time,” he said.
The growing accessibility of AI tools is also challenging how enterprises evaluate their existing security risks. Oliveira noted that many large organisations have thousands of unresolved software vulnerabilities. Some were previously considered low priority because exploiting them required significant technical expertise.
However, AI-powered tools are changing this assessment by making it easier to develop exploits for previously known weaknesses.
“I think that label has expired. It’s no longer true. You can’t use that anymore,” he said, referring to vulnerabilities that were earlier classified as too difficult to exploit.
Oliveira also highlighted a vulnerability discovered in 2004. Although researchers had demonstrated that it could be exploited, developing a practical attack was considered difficult. With the assistance of an AI agent, an exploit was subsequently developed within a matter of weeks.
The situation is becoming more challenging as AI-powered coding tools accelerate software development and increase the volume of code being produced. Traditional security teams, which depend heavily on human reviewers to identify and address vulnerabilities, are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the growing workload.
“Humans cannot review their volume,” Oliveira said, warning that security systems relying solely on generating alerts for human investigation may become ineffective.
GitHub is already witnessing this increase through its security tools. According to Oliveira, Dependabot, the company’s software composition analysis tool that identifies vulnerabilities in third-party software dependencies, has recorded a 5-fold increase in alerts over the past 6 months. However, he did not specify the exact comparison period.
The developments highlight the growing pressure on enterprises to strengthen their cybersecurity approaches as AI makes both software development and vulnerability exploitation faster and more accessible.
(This reporter was in San Francisco at the invitation of GitHub)
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