Security chief says criminals are already automating workflows, with full end-to-end tools likely within years

CISOs must prepare for "a really different world" where cybercriminals can reliably automate cyberattacks at scale, according to a senior Googler.

Heather Adkins, veep of security engineering at the ad and cloud giant, said it probably won't be for a few years to come, but cybercriminals are already using AI to enhance small parts of their workflows, and it won't be long before a full, end-to-end toolkit is developed.

In a conversation held on the Google Cloud Security podcast, Adkins pointed out that crooks are already using AI for small tasks - grammar, spell-checking phishing copy and other productivity enhancements.

"It's just a matter of time before somebody puts all of these things together, end-to-end," she said. "And what I fear the most is somebody developing the capability to prompt a model to hack any company, and the model being able to come back in a week with ...