Trinity Today navigates the AI-cybersecurity frontier with Professor David Hickton – legal scholar, cyber strategist, and key collaborator on Trinity’s ADAPT Centre’s Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Pittsburgh
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Trinity’s ADAPT Centre and University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security (Pitt Cyber) – officially signed in July 2024 – represents more than symbolic cooperation. It establishes a living framework for confronting AI’s ethical quandaries. David Hickton, who assumed a visiting professorship in Trinity’s School of Law during his May 2025 visit, describes the collaboration as ‘a culture of shared learning that promotes innovation while protecting privacy’.
In an era where algorithms wield unprecedented power and digital threats evolve at speed, Hickton stands at the disciplinary crossroads of justice and technology, charting a path through what may become one the defining digital battlegrounds of our age: the collision of artificial intelligence and human vulnerability.
Cyberattacks have skyrocketed in recent years, with small and medium enterprises bearing the brunt. Yet awareness lags well behind threat levels. A recent Fortinet survey lays bare the gap: 67% of organisations admit their employees lack basic security awareness, but for Hickton, this isn’t merely statistics: ‘AI and the ways it will be nefariously used is the most pressing challenge facing organisations today.’ Already, Generative AI has been used to weaponise deception, defrauding millions; in 2024 alone, over a third of breached organisations faced losses exceeding €500,000.
And while malware and hacking tend to dominate the headlines, Hickton spotlights a quieter crisis: ‘When organisations grow quickly, when there is personnel turnover, or when data pipelines change, sensitive data can be spread out and left in the open. Data sprawl is a real issue.’ Even in the cloud era, where ‘decentralisation is actually good for data security, poor data organisation, management, and governance is an everlasting issue… leaving organisations vulnerable and privacy potentially violated’, warns Hickton.
The World Economic Forum ranks AI-driven misinformation/disinformation as a serious emerging risk, a threat the cyber-strategist endorses: ‘We’re seeing pollution of our information ecosystem with misleading synthetic media proliferating online.’ This isn’t just generic phishing scams with bad grammar, AI will increase psychological manipulation that attackers will leverage, exploiting what Hickton terms as ‘something deeply human.’
‘Malware is becoming more autonomous and adaptive,’ Hickton warns. AI-powered attacks learn in real-time, self-replicate, and spread like digital pathogens, yet the greatest danger lies in complacency. With AI still in its infancy, the risk escalates as we integrate the emerging tech into critical processes without anticipating novel threats. Cautious adoption is paramount, ‘…in terms of workflows and applications but also in terms of cybersecurity. AI can both uncover attacks and leave organisations vulnerable to them. So, adoption of emergent tech should be done fully considering its risks – not just because “everyone else is doing it.”’
Pitt Cyber’s partnership with Trinity’s ADAPT Centre embodies another of Hickton’s core convictions that cybersecurity demands a balanced approach. ‘You might think of this as an empowerment approach where you are not just training employees to avoid falling for scams but instead equipping them to be an early warning system where suspicious activity is flagged.’
For other organisations and institutions navigating this minefield, Hickton prescribes clarity: ‘Upskilling your workforce and investing concretely in training the talent you already have in emerging tech, evolving digital threats, and newly needed personnel capabilities is a human-first strategy that can cultivate a culture of cross-functional cyber resilience.’
As we stand at this inflection point, how we harness AI’s potential while mitigating its perils will define our digital future.
View Trinity Today 2025 online https://viewer.ipaper.io/trinity-development-and-alumni/trinity-today-2025/trinity-today-2025/?page=1
