Cyber Threat Intelligence with Symmetry for Zero-Trust Security

The rapid growth of the Internet has created huge opportunities but has also led to various cybersecurity incidents that seriously threaten personal information, national security, and economic growth. In January 2022, a series of cyber-attacks targeted several Ukrainian banks and the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, causing disruptions to these sites. DDoS attacks also occurred at the same time, overwhelming the targeted sites significantly [1]–[3]. In response to this surge in cyber-attacks, the international community began focusing on Ukraine’s cybersecurity. Many countries provided technical and hardware support, including anti-virus software, firewalls, and other cybersecurity defense tools [4], [5]. However, the unique aspect of cyberspace is that attacks are silent while defenses are loud [6]. These defenses were broken shortly after Ukraine and its supporters formed a coalition [7], [8]. With the significant success of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past decade and the widespread adoption of AI-assisted software, AI-enhanced cybersecurity attack scenarios have emerged [9], [10]. Recently, after OpenAI’s API was publicly released, various platforms have integrated it into their operating systems and applications [11], [12]. In good faith, these uses and models have offered many conveniences; however, in cyberspace, these AI-assisted services are quickly being repurposed into adversarial tools that actively create, perform, and distribute phishing emails [13]–[15], replacing the extensive manpower needed to develop comprehensive phishing attacks. At the same time, there is growing sophistication in developing socially engineered deep fake AIs to generate high-quality, versatile fake identities [16]–[18]. The threats discussed here highlight the need for a strong, integrated cybersecurity system that combines AI, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), and Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA). A key element of this integration is the idea of symmetry—an organizing principle that adds balance and resilience to cybersecurity models by ensuring defense mechanisms develop at a comparable rate to threats. This paper introduces a new architecture that integrates CTI and ZTA through symmetry, creating smarter, more adaptive, and scalable security systems.