Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2601.14614

Towards Cybersecurity Superintelligence: from AI-guided humans to human-guided AI

Víctor Mayoral-Vilches·Stefan Rass·Martin Pinzger·Endika Gil-Uriarte·Unai Ayucar-Carbajo·Jon Ander Ruiz-Alcalde·Maite del Mundo de Torres·María Sanz-Gómez·Francesco Balassone·Cristóbal R. J. Veas-Chavez·Vanesa Turiel·Alfonso Glera-Picón·Daniel Sánchez-Prieto·Yuri Salvatierra·Paul Zabalegui-Landa·Ruffino Reydel Cabrera-Álvarez·Patxi Mayoral-Pizarroso
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Cybersecurity superintelligence -- artificial intelligence exceeding the best human capability in both speed and strategic reasoning -- represents the next frontier in security. This paper documents the emergence of such capability through three major contributions that have pioneered the field of AI Security. First, PentestGPT (2023) established LLM-guided penetration testing, achieving 228.6% improvement over baseline models through an architecture that externalizes security expertise into natural language guidance. Second, Cybersecurity AI (CAI, 2025) demonstrated automated expert-level performance, operating 3,600x faster than humans while reducing costs 156-fold, validated through #1 rankings at international competitions including the $50,000 Neurogrid CTF prize. Third, Generative Cut-the-Rope (G-CTR, 2026) introduces a neurosymbolic architecture embedding game-theoretic reasoning into LLM-based agents: symbolic equilibrium computation augments neural inference, doubling success rates while reducing behavioral variance 5.2x and achieving 2:1 advantage over non-strategic AI in Attack & Defense scenarios. Together, these advances establish a clear progression from AI-guided humans to human-guided game-theoretic cybersecurity superintelligence.

Explore related subjects

cs.CR

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Víctor Mayoral-Vilches, Stefan Rass, Martin Pinzger, Endika Gil-Uriarte, Unai Ayucar-Carbajo, Jon Ander Ruiz-Alcalde, Maite del Mundo de Torres, María Sanz-Gómez, Francesco Balassone, Cristóbal R. J. Veas-Chavez, Vanesa Turiel, Alfonso Glera-Picón, Daniel Sánchez-Prieto, Yuri Salvatierra, Paul Zabalegui-Landa, Ruffino Reydel Cabrera-Álvarez, Patxi Mayoral-Pizarroso. 2026-02-09. Towards Cybersecurity Superintelligence: from AI-guided humans to human-guided AI. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14614

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

MIRANDA: short signatures from a leakage-free full-domain-hash scheme

We present $\mathsf{Miranda}$, the first family of full-domain-hash signatures based on matrix codes. This signature scheme fulfils the paradigm of Gentry, Peikert and Vaikuntanathan ($\mathsf{GPV}$), which gives strong security guarantees. Our trapdoor is very simple and generic: if we propose it with matrix codes, it can actually be instantiated in many other ways since it only involves a subcode of a decodable code (or lattice) in a unique decoding regime of parameters. Though $\mathsf{Miranda}$ signing algorithm relies on a decoding task where there is exactly one solution, there are many possible signatures given a message to sign and we ensure that signatures are not leaking information on their underlying trapdoor by means of a very simple procedure involving the drawing of a small number of uniform bits. In particular $\mathsf{Miranda}$ does not use a rejection sampling procedure which makes its implementation a very simple task contrary to other $\mathsf{GPV}$-like signatures schemes such as $\mathsf{Falcon}$ or even $\mathsf{Wave}$. We instantiate $\mathsf{Miranda}$ with the famous family of Gabidulin codes represented as spaces of matrices and we study thoroughly its security (in the EUF-CMA security model). For~$128$ bits of classical security, the signature sizes are as low as~$90$ bytes and the public key sizes are in the order of~$2.6$ megabytes.

cs.CR↗
arXiv2026

SteganoBackdoor: Evading Data-Poisoning Defenses via Steganographic Backdoors

Transformer-based models are highly susceptible to backdoor attacks via supervised fine-tuning (SFT). To red-team existing data-poisoning defenses, prior work has increasingly focused on stylized triggers, synthetic artifacts, and token-level perturbations designed to evade detection. However, this trend has shifted threat models away from naturally occurring semantic triggers and realistic low-budget poisoning settings. Addressing this gap, we introduce SteganoBackdoor, an optimization-based framework that transforms semantic-trigger seeds through autoregressive token replacement, sequentially minimizing embedding overlap with the inference-time trigger while preserving a strong per-sample training-time payload. The resulting SteganoPoisons maintain linguistic fluency and encode the payload across ordinary tokens, such that no individual token carries a concentrated signal and the full payload instead emerges from their exact combination and ordering. Across 18 encoder-based and decoder-only models spanning 120M to 14B parameters, SteganoBackdoor achieves high attack success under sub-percent poisoning budgets and exposes limitations in existing data-poisoning defenses.

cs.CR↗
arXiv2026

Foundations and Design Principles of Lightweight Cryptography for IoT Systems

The successful deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications relies heavily on their robust security, and lightweight cryptography is considered an emerging solution in this context. While existing surveys have been examining lightweight cryptographic techniques from the perspective of hardware and software implementations or performance evaluation, there is a significant gap in addressing different security aspects, such as design principles, specific to the IoT environment. This study aims to bridge this gap. This research presents an examination with focusing on the security evaluation of symmetric lightweight ciphers commonly used in IoT systems. The objective of this study is to provide a concise overview of lightweight ciphers with emphasizing on their security challenges which is an essential consideration for real-time and resource-constrained applications.

cs.CR↗