Lumen’s Natnael Habtesion advocates a strategic and cautious approach to AI integration

Natnael Habtesion, Vice President and Deputy Chief Security Officer at Lumen underscores the importance of striking a balance between the business advantages of AI, such as enhanced efficiency and rapid data processing, and the imperative of prioritizing security. Given Lumen’s critical role in supporting government entities’ infrastructure, a cautious and measured approach is being taken toward AI implementation, focusing on internal efficiency improvements rather than complete integration. Habtesion also delves into the escalating reliance on automation and the extended software supply chain, emphasizing the need to instill security measures throughout the product development life cycle. He advocates active participation in the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to ensure product security. Furthermore, Habtesion stresses the significance of concentrating efforts on controls, detection, and prevention to address incidents swiftly, minimize their impact, and derive valuable insights from security events.