{"id":229087,"date":"2026-02-04T14:45:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=229087"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:36:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:36:38","slug":"ai-as-small-business-security-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/02\/04\/ai-as-small-business-security-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop cyber threats! Learn to use <abbr>AI<\/abbr> as your small business security ally"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/maui-cybersecurity-2026-ii.jpg\" alt=\"People in a class\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-229094\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/maui-cybersecurity-2026-ii.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/maui-cybersecurity-2026-ii-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/maui-cybersecurity-2026-ii-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The University of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Maui College is hosting the second of three free online cybersecurity clinics for <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8216;s sole proprietors and small business owners. &ldquo;Security using Gen<abbr>AI<\/abbr>&rdquo; is the topic for this session, taking place on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, from 12 to 1 p.m. <abbr title=\"Hawaii standard time\">HST<\/abbr>, via Zoom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hawaii.zoom.us\/webinar\/register\/WN_vGTwuOpBQz689e--79d4pA#\/registration\">Register online<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Moderated by Debasis Bhattacharya (professor and program coordinator of the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Maui College Applied Business and Information Technology Program), the clinic will help participants transform Generative <abbr>AI<\/abbr> from a buzzword into a powerful security ally.<\/p>\n<p>This session will focus on the security and privacy issues associated with <abbr>AI<\/abbr>, providing a clear roadmap for integrating <abbr>AI<\/abbr> tools ethically and effectively to stay one step ahead of sophisticated cyber threats.<\/p>\n<h2>Participants will learn practical use cases, including<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>How generative <abbr>AI<\/abbr> identifies anomalies and patterns that traditional rule-based systems miss.<\/li>\n<li>Basics of prompt engineering for small businesses.<\/li>\n<li>Navigating data privacy concerns and &ldquo;shadow <abbr>AI<\/abbr>&rdquo; while maximizing defensive capabilities.<\/li>\n<li>Automating threat detection and accelerating incident response times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Presenters<\/h2>\n<p>Presenters include Jodi Ito, <abbr>UH<\/abbr> chief information security officer and David Stevens, assistant professor at <span lang=\"haw\">Kapi&#699;olani<\/span> Community College, a University of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> campus.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Generative <abbr>AI<\/abbr> tools such as Chat<abbr>GPT<\/abbr> are popular because they have learned just about everything there is to know on the Internet, and they respond to chat prompts in a human-friendly way. The risks here are loss of data privacy, training bias and hallucinations from the <abbr>AI<\/abbr> tool itself. This webinar will help small businesses use GenAI tools reliably and effectively to secure their business,&rdquo; said Bhattacharya.<\/p>\n<p>These clinics are part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/maui.hawaii.edu\/cyberclinic\">University of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Cybersecurity Clinics<\/a>, funded by a $1-million grant and wraparound support from Google&#8217;s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn how to integrate <abbr>AI<\/abbr> tools for cybersecurity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":229094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1602,749,63,71,60,947],"class_list":["post-229087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-kapiolani-community-college","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-maui-college","tag-uh-system","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/maui-cybersecurity-2026-ii.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229087"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229208,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229087\/revisions\/229208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}