The Automation of Exploits: Will Eatherton on AI-Driven Security and the End of Obscurity

At Hardwear.io USA 2026, Will Eatherton, SVP of Engineering at Cisco, discusses the profound impact Large Language Models (LLMs) are having on the cybersecurity landscape. Eatherton explains that the traditional "obscurity" of complex hardware and software systems is vanishing because AI can now bridge previously siloed skill sets, combining expertise in firmware, system design, and embedded software to generate step-by-step exploits. He describes Cisco's experiments with an "automated assembly line" for security, where AI can identify vulnerabilities, create configurations, and generate test traffic in moments - tasks that previously took human experts days to complete. Find out more about the upcoming, Hardwear.io Security Trainings and Conference NL 2026 - https://hardwear.io/