SEC595: Applied Data Science and AI/Machine Learning for Cybersecurity Professionals

Artificial intelligence has become the latest buzz word in our modern society, with many people and organizations not actually understanding what AI actually is or what it can actually be used for.
AI is an incredibly powerful tool, which, in the hands of somebody who understands how to use it, can give them a significant advantage in the field of cyber crime. Cyber criminals have begun to make extensive use of artificial intelligence to assist them in their criminal activities.
Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is transitioning from academic research into production libraries and protocol stacks. Hybrid algorithms are already appearing in TLS implementations, certificate chains, and experimental QUIC deployments. Security teams need to understand not just the theory behind PQC, but how it behaves in operational environments. This talk examines the practical implications of quantum computing on today's cryptographic systems. We will briefly review how Shor's algorithm threatens RSA and elliptic curve cryptography, and how Grover's algorithm impacts symmetric encryption. From there, we will focus on crypto agility and hybrid deployments as realistic transition strategies. Using modern tooling, we will demonstrate how to generate and deploy hybrid certificate chains and post-quantum key exchanges. We will then capture and inspect PQC-enabled traffic to analyze what these handshakes look like on the wire. Attendees will gain visibility into how post-quantum cryptography manifests in packet captures, how to validate implementations, and how to begin assessing their own environments for quantum readiness. The quantum transition is not a distant event. It is an architectural migration already underway and defenders need to know how to observe and operationalize it.