{"id":145436,"date":"2026-08-19T22:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/145436\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T22:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:05:08","slug":"ruthless-prioritization-needed-in-face-of-ai-threats-says-white-house-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/145436\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ruthless prioritization\u2019 needed in face of AI threats, says White House official"},"content":{"rendered":"

As AI tools complicate the cyber vulnerability landscape, a White House official focused on fortifying the government\u2019s supply chain against digital threats suggested a back-to-basics approach.<\/p>\n

Cheri Benedict, senior cyber supply chain advisor in the Executive Office of the President\u2019s Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, said that while she recognizes AI remains \u201ca burgeoning environment,\u201d she believes \u201cit\u2019s just going to come back to the basic hygiene of what we had to do already\u201d \u2014 only now at a faster pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of that said, it takes ruthless prioritization \u2026 on what your key assets are and your priorities,\u201d Benedict told attendees during a virtual Intelligence and National Security Alliance panel Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She conceded that it can be difficult when there are seemingly endless patches and priorities, but emphasized that organizations need to ensure that everyone on relevant teams is aware of what assets are considered most important, so they can be \u201call hands on deck\u201d when needed.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s particularly crucial as AI is also providing insight into cyber vulnerabilities that may have previously been unknown, Benedict explained. \u201cI think making sure that when that data comes to you, that there\u2019s a prioritization mechanism that you can take action on and communicate is going to be super important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benedict\u2019s comments came in response to an audience question about how the government is addressing threats to the supply chain driven by autonomous AI agents. While Benedict said government is \u201cstill figuring that out\u201d and there were things she was unable to share, she stressed the importance of trust as well as the \u201cruthless prioritization\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

The current environment is \u201ccomplex,\u201d Benedict said, pointing specifically to OpenAI\u2019s recent incident<\/a> in which an AI agent escaped its testing environment, gained internet access, and attempted to hack Hugging Face to get answers for its prompt.<\/p>\n

Benedict said it\u2019s important to be aware of where AI is being used, pointing to AI discovery tools \u2014 or those that can review an environment for vulnerabilities \u2014 as an option. Agencies, specifically, have such tools available through the General Services Administration, she said.<\/p>\n

Organizations used to have an environment they thought they could trust, she said, but infused with AI, \u201cwe\u2019re looking at it in a whole new light and not sure what it\u2019s capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Madison<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Madison Alder
\n\t\t\tMadison Alder is a reporter for FedScoop in Washington, D.C., covering government technology. Her reporting has included tracking government uses of artificial intelligence and monitoring changes in federal contracting. She\u2019s broadly interested in issues involving health, law, and data. Before joining FedScoop, Madison was a reporter at Bloomberg Law where she covered several beats, including the federal judiciary, health policy, and employee benefits. A west-coaster at heart, Madison is originally from Seattle and is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As AI tools complicate the cyber vulnerability landscape, a White House official focused on fortifying the government\u2019s supply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[405,111,7537,71508,71509,71510,18044,8872],"class_list":["post-145436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agentic-ai","tag-ai-agents","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence-agents","tag-cheri-benedict","tag-cyber-supply-chain-risk-management-c-scrm","tag-executive-office-of-the-president","tag-hugging-face","tag-open-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}