The Speed Problem

Christie Vazquez
2 days ago
3 min read

For years, cybersecurity operated on a manageable asymmetry: attackers moved fast, but defenders had hours or days to detect, respond, and contain. That window no longer exists.

The rise of AI-powered cyberattacks has not simply accelerated the threat landscape. It has restructured it. What once took a skilled adversary days to orchestrate now executes in real time. What required human judgment and patience now runs autonomously, at scale, around the clock.

This is no longer a technical problem for IT departments to manage quietly. It is a leadership problem. One that demands attention, investment, and urgency at the highest levels of the organization.

29 min

Average attacker breakout time in 2025 — down 65% year-over-year

27 sec

Fastest recorded network breakout in 2025

87%

Of organizations now reporting AI-driven cyber incidents

Sources: CrowdStrike Global Threat Report 2025 | World Economic Forum Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 |

The Threat Has Changed — Has Your Response?

Think of it this way: traditional cyberattacks followed a human pace. Bad actors had to research targets, try different approaches, and wait for the right moment. That gave organizations time to spot trouble and respond.

AI has erased that window. Attackers now use the same technology driving business productivity tools — and they are pointing it at your organization. The result is attacks that find weaknesses faster than any security team can track them, and that scale across thousands of targets simultaneously.

The numbers tell the story plainly:

Three out of four organizations cannot keep up with the pace of AI-powered attacks today. (CrowdStrike)
The average time an attacker needs to move through a company's systems after getting in fell to 29 minutes in 2025 — down 65% from the year before. (CrowdStrike)
87% of organizations worldwide have already experienced an AI-driven attack. (World Economic Forum)

This is not a future risk. It is today's reality and most organizations are still responding at yesterday's speed.

Why Most Organizations Are Behind

The honest answer is that most companies built their security programs for a different era. The people, processes, and budgets were designed around threats that moved at human speed. Where a team of analysts could review alerts, investigate a problem over the course of a workday, and respond before serious damage was done.

That model no longer fits the threat. Yet many organizations have not yet updated their approach. Awareness is not the same as readiness. And in cybersecurity, the cost of that gap is measured in real dollars and real consequences.

Questions to Ask Your Information Security Team This Week

1. How fast can we actually respond when something goes wrong? If an attacker can move through your systems in under 30 minutes, a security program that operates on an hours-long response cycle is already behind. This is a business question, not just a technical one — and leadership should be asking for a straight answer.

2. Are we fighting today's attacks with yesterday's tools? Attackers are using AI. Organizations that are not doing the same are at a structural disadvantage. The question is not whether to modernize — it is whether you are moving fast enough to matter.

3. Does our security budget reflect the actual risk? If your investment in cybersecurity has grown slowly while the threat has grown rapidly, the math does not work in your favor. The question is not whether security deserves resources — it is whether the current level reflects what is genuinely at stake.

The Path Forward

The core message of this article is straightforward: the speed of cyberattacks has changed, and most organizations have not yet changed with it. AI has given attackers tools that are faster, cheaper, and more scalable than anything they have had before and the average company is still responding at a pace designed for a slower era.

The good news is that the gap is closeable. Organizations that take this seriously and ask the hard questions, invest in modern defenses, and put leadership attention behind the issue, are in a fundamentally stronger position than those that treat it as an IT line item. The difference between the two is rarely technology. It is decision-making at the top.

No organization can guarantee it will never be hit. What leadership can control is how quickly the problem gets spotted, how far the damage spreads, and how fast the organization gets back on its feet.

The threat is moving faster. The question is whether your organization is moving with it.

The views expressed are my own. This post was written with the assistance of AI.