Seminar: Measuring and Responding to the AI Cyber Storm
Eric Pauley
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Friday, September 18, 2026
2:30 -3:30 p.m.
3100 Torgersen Hall
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence, and particularly agentic AI, has fundamentally altered software security in a matter of months. Agents are beginning to outperform humans at discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities, and their scale has led to a surge of attacks against the systems we all depend on. I'll discuss why this happened so suddenly and how my research group is measuring the emerging exploitation of software and networked systems. I’ll conclude with a broader exploration of how AI is impacting research and scientific discovery in security and computer science generally.
Biography
Eric Pauley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. His research focuses on empirical and experimental approaches for understanding the security of large-scale systems, particularly computer networks and networked software systems. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Terrace Networks, an AI-driven cyber threat intelligence company that defends commercial, educational, and institutional networks from sophisticated attackers.