Saw a reply someone made to a tweet: “AI is both the co-actor, in the creation and in the destruction.” And honestly, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Because it’s true. And it’s terrifying.

The World I Thought I Had Time to Catch Up To

I started out writing frontend code, building things, learning the craft. And cybersecurity was never an afterthought either. My dad planted that seed in me, and it grew into something real — real enough that I’m studying it as my first degree right now. That’s not a casual decision. That’s a direction I chose intentionally. But I’m still a software engineer. Still in the middle of that world, still building, still shipping. And for a while, that felt okay. I told myself I could do both, grow in engineering, study security on the side, and eventually bring it all together. This is a growing field. I’ll grow with it. There’s time.

There wasn’t lol.

AI didn’t wait for me to be ready. It didn’t wait for any of us. It accelerated everything — the attacks, the threats, the sophistication of the people doing real damage. Security researchers who have spent years in this space are getting outplayed right now. And me? I chose this path early. Deliberately. This wasn’t a last minute career pivot or a trend I jumped on — I’ve been moving toward this world for years. And somehow, I still feel behind. That’s the part I can’t shake.

AI Wasn’t Just Meant to Replace Jobs

We were sold a story about AI replacing jobs. That was the headline. That was the fear everyone was debating on Twitter and LinkedIn. Automation. Unemployment. The robots taking over.

But nobody was loud enough about the other thing (until recently). AI wasn’t just going to replace jobs — it was also going to be weaponized. It was going to make bad actors more dangerous than they’ve ever been. It was going to lower the barrier to attacks that used to require serious technical skill.

That’s what keeps me up at night.

And Then There’s Home

Today again, news broke that the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) allegedly suffered a data breach. 250GB of data — members’ personal information, identification documents, source codes — all reportedly exposed.

250GB.

Someone in the thread just said: “no one is safe.” And I felt that deeply. Not just because it’s Nigeria. Because it’s a pattern. There has been a major data breach every single week this month. Every. Single. Week.

Institutions that people trust with their most sensitive information are falling one after another. And the response cycle — breach, statement, apology, move on — is getting embarrassing. We keep asking “who is next?” when maybe the better question is: “who is actually prepared?”

The Scary Part Isn’t the Attacks. It’s the Gap.

Here’s what I really want to say: the part that scares me most isn’t the attacks themselves. It’s the gap. The gap between how fast bad actors are using AI to exploit, breach & disrupt — and how slowly the rest of us are catching up.

Defenders are reactive. Attackers are innovative. And AI has just poured fuel on that imbalance. Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO, said it better than I could. Describing the group behind a recent attack on their systems, he wrote that they moved with surprising velocity and an in-depth understanding — and that he strongly suspects they were significantly accelerated by AI.

That’s the gap I’m talking about. And somewhere inside it is me — someone who cares, who’s paying attention, who sees exactly what’s happening — but doesn’t yet have the knowledge to be useful in this fight.

That’s a hard thing to sit with. I hate that I don’t have enough knowledge to be part of this. I said it. It’s embarrassing to type, but it’s true.

So What Now?

I’m not writing this to be dramatic. I’m writing this because I think a lot of people feel exactly what I’m feeling and nobody’s saying it out loud.

The world is moving in a direction that will reward people who understand security, AI, and the intersection of both. And it will leave everyone else dangerously exposed — either as targets, or as bystanders who can’t help.

I don’t want to be a bystander. I don’t think you do either.

The hype around AI tools like Mythos and others in that space — imagine if even half of it is real. Imagine the disruption. Imagine how many businesses, people, and governments are completely unprepared for what’s coming.

Scary times. That’s genuinely where we are.

But I’d rather be scared and awake than comfortable and blindsided.

So I’m starting. Slowly. Imperfectly. But I’m starting.