About me — Tochukwu Okonkwor
Tips and Secrets of a Cybersecurity Professional: How to Defend Yourself against AI Attacks.
It is late at night, and you are scrolling through your phone, and all of a sudden, you receive a message with a deepfake video of your boss. It seems like it is real, too real- and it requires the secrets of your company. Banging you are. Well, what are you going to do? That is the kind of insidious AI risk I had to deal with several years ago when working on governmental projects. It was a gut kicker that changed everything for me. Hello, my name is Tochukwu Okonkwor, and I am here on Medium to share with you stories like this, not to scare you, but to equip you with the weaponry to fight back.
I was at the time a cybersecurity contractor, and I saw how hackers were bypassing old defenses using AI. It was not only code-breaking, but the smart machines finding our weak points.
That assault allowed me to get my two master’s degrees from Northwestern University, Illinois, and King’s College in London. As well as cybersecurity certifications, such as CEH, CISM, AWS Security, Azure Security, and CCNP Security, to name a few. I work as a Principal Security Architect at a tech company. I develop ethical AI applications that reduce false alarms by 35%. I also create dashboards that detect risks 30% faster. But this is the thing — I don’t wish to help big agencies alone. So, this Medium experience in 2025 is how I am offering to you the merit I have gained over the years of combating digital threats.
I am your friendly jungle AI security writer. I will write about how AI can rescue us and how it can disappoint us in case we are not attentive. I will discuss Quantum-Resistant AI Security. This means we need to create protections that stop future supercomputers from breaking our codes. Agentic AI Security. They are independent yet require safeguarding against such threats as an impending hack. I will plunge into Deepfake Detection and Mitigation in AI Security, and show how simple it is to detect fake video or voice before it causes any damages.
I will share stories about Homomorphic Encryption and AI Privacy. It is an encryption technology in which you can work on the encrypted data without opening it. It is also an intelligent means of storing your data in the cloud. We shall talk about Edge AI Security to protect smart home devices. Then we will discuss AI Supply Chain Security to avoid risks in the building blocks of AI. We shall be able to observe how insider threats can be identified with the help of ML that identifies smart insider jobs with smart patterns. I will discuss some of the major issues. To begin with, AI Security in Regulated Industries, such as health care, where rules are rigid. Then, Ethical AI Bias Detection in Security assists in fairness. Finally, offline AI Security in Underserved Markets can be applied in the protection of individuals in remote areas. This is done without requiring high internet access.
My goal? These large concepts seem like coffee chats. No puff — practical value of my experience at first hand. Well, here are five fast pointers out of my experience to get you started right now:
- Deepfakes are a threat to be cautious of in everyday life: Free software such as Microsoft Video Authenticator can check suspect videos. It has rescued one of my teams out of a scam that would have run thousands.
- Homomorphic tricks: Encrypt your data: Consider it a magic safe-first test it on small files to keep sensitive data hidden as the AI processes it.
- Hawk-monitor AI agents: Simple rules to drop the bad orders and to reduce the risk by 35 percent.
- Go quantum-safe now! Bad passwords should be replaced with post-quantum math passwords. You can do it more easily than you imagine, and it will quantum-proof you.
- Identify biases early: AI tools must be tested early enough to make sure that they are not biased.
Not only are these theoretical, but the victories I have used in my practice in AI security.
This is why, follow me, and we will make AI your best defense. So what is the coolest, or the scariest, thing about AI security? Write and we can talk. Stay safe!
