AI-Enabled Speed and Scale
Threat actors are weaponizing AI to accelerate attacks and amplify their impact, demanding that Security Operations Centers (SOCs) deliver ever-increasing precision and speed. Unit 42 research shows that AI can speed attack timelines by 100x.1 Attack chains that once took days or weeks to complete now take hours or minutes..
Supercharged Attacks
AI-enabled social engineering creates hyper-realistic deepfakes and messages designed to bypass existing controls. AI-generated malware, designed to evade existing detection logic, is also increasing in frequency. The emergence of Agentic AI, autonomous systems that learn, adapt, and execute multi-step operations without human interaction, escalates the risk to unprecedented levels.
Collapsing Attack Timelines
AI-enabled threats are compressing defender timelines to minutes. Unit 42 found nearly one in five incidents involved data exfiltration within the first hour.2 Your SOC is no longer racing against the clock. You need AI and automation to fight AI-enabled attacks.
Fragmented Defenses Undermine Speed and Visibility
The speed and scale of AI-enabled intrusions expose critical weaknesses in fragmented security architectures and complex environments. SOC teams are often consumed by the operational burden of managing too many tools and correlating data across disconnected systems, preventing them from maintaining a unified view necessary for timely action. This complexity leads to analyst fatigue and is a core enabler for adversaries.
Unit 42 AI Threat Readiness Benefits
- Validate Your Defenses: Execute AI-generated attack playbooks in collaboration with your SOC, observing logs, alerts, and defensive actions in real-time.
- Achieve Decisive Response Speed: Dramatically shrink the window of opportunity for AI-enabled attacks and optimize your SOC’s defenses.
- Elevate Analyst Skills: Provide SOC analysts with live-fire coaching and knowledge transfer from Unit 42 experts to foster a more resilient and high-performing team.
Unit 42 AI Threat Readiness
Unit 42 AI Threat Readiness is a hands-on service designed to elevate your SOC’s resilience against emerging threats. Built on our proven, threat-informed purple team methodology, it combines red team attack simulations with blue team hunting in close collaboration with your SOC to identify gaps, validate defenses, and upskill your team. The service integrates threat profiling, attack surface visibility, and AI-generated phishing, vishing, and deepfake scenarios, focusing on speed, scale, and sophistication. Your SOC will be more effective against traditional adversaries and AI-enabled attacks across perimeter, technology, human, and attack-chain vectors.
Fortify Your SOC Against AI-Powered Threats |
|
|---|---|
Simulate AI-Enabled Attacks |
Red team experts emulate adversaries using AI-enhanced TTPs, including AI-crafted phishing, customized AI-generated malware, and accelerated data exfiltration. |
Custom Threat Scenarios |
Intelligence-led activities are tailored to your industry, technology stack, and threat actors most likely to target you, leveraging Unit 42’s frontline incident response experience and threat intelligence. |
Stress-Test Detection and Response |
Turn findings into measurable SOC improvements by working side-by-side with your analysts in a collaborative Purple Team Exercise that validates detection capabilities and incident response workflows. |
Knowledge Transfer |
Unit 42 works side by side with your SOC, demonstrating attack methodologies via screen share and providing real-time feedback, threat hunting experience, and actionable improvements for sustainable readiness. Your analysts leave with detection skills, queries, and remediations, not just findings. |
About Unit 42
Unit 42® brings together our world-renowned threat researchers and hunters with an elite team of security consultants to create an intelligence-driven, response-ready organization. The Unit 42 Threat Intelligence team provides threat research that enables security teams to understand adversary intent and attribution while enhancing protections offered by our products and services to stop advanced attacks. As threats escalate, Unit 42 is available to advise customers on the latest risks, assess their readiness, and help them recover when the worst occurs. For the latest threat intel and research, please visit https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/.
1 Unit 42 2025 Global Incident Response Report, February, 2025
2 Ibid
