The role of AI in cyber security and how it’s reinventing cyber security and cybercrime

 The role of AI in cyber security and how it’s reinventing cyber security and cybercrime

Artificial intelligence poses both a blessing and a curse to businesses, customers, and cybercriminals alike.

AI technology is what provides us with speech recognition technology (think Siri), Google’s search engine, and Facebook’s facial recognition software. Some credit card companies are now using AI to help financial institutions prevent billions of dollars in fraud annually. But what about its applications in cyber security? Is artificial intelligence an advantage or a threat to your company’s digital security?

On one hand, artificial intelligence in cyber security is beneficial because it improves how security experts analyze, study, and understand cybercrime. It enhances the cyber security technologies that companies use to combat cybercriminals and help keep organizations and customers safe. On the other hand, artificial intelligence can be very resource intensive. It may not be practical in all applications. More importantly, it also can serve as a new weapon in the arsenal of cybercriminals who use the technology to hone and improve their cyberattacks.

The discussion about artificial intelligence in cyber security is nothing new. In fact, two years ago, we were writing about how artificial intelligence and machine learning would change the future of cyber security. After all, data is at the core of cyber security trends. And what better way to analyze data than to use computers that can think and do in nanoseconds tasks that would take people significantly more time?

Artificial intelligence is a growing area of interest and investment within the cyber security community. We’ll discuss advances in artificial intelligence security tools and how the technology impacts organizations, cybercriminals, and consumers alike.

Let’s hash it out.

How artificial intelligence cyber security measures improve digital security

Ideally, if you’re like many modern businesses, you have multiple levels of protection in place — perimeter, network, endpoint, application, and data security measures. For example, you may have hardware or software firewalls and network security solutions that track and determine which network connections are allowed and block others. If hackers make it past these defenses, then they’ll be up against your antivirus and anti-malware solutions. Then perhaps they may face your intrusion detection/intrusion prevention solutions (IDS/IPS), etc., etc.

But what happens when cybercriminals get past these protections? If your cyber security is dependent on the capabilities of human-based monitoring alone, you’re in trouble. After all, cybercrime doesn’t follow a set schedule —your cyber security response capabilities shouldn’t either. You need to be able to detect, identify, and respond to the threats immediately — 24/7/365. Regardless of holidays, non-work hours, or when employees are otherwise unavailable, your digital security solutions need to be up to the task and able to respond immediately. Artificial intelligence-based cyber security solutions are designed to work around the clock to protect you. AI can respond in milliseconds to cyberattacks that would take minutes, hours, days, or even months it would take humans to identify.

What cyber security executives think about AI

Capgemini Research Institute analyzed the role of cyber security and their report “Reinventing Cybersecurity with Artificial Intelligence” indicates that building up cyber security defenses with AI is imperative for organizations. This is, in part, because the survey’s respondents (850 executives from cyber security, IT information security and IT operations across 10 countries) believe that AI-enabled response is necessary because hackers are already using the technology to perform cyberattacks.

Some of the report’s other key takeaways include:

• 75% of surveyed executives say that AI allows their organization to respond faster to breaches.
• 69% of organizations think AI is necessary to respond to cyberattacks.
• Three in five firms say that using AI improves the accuracy and efficiency of cyber analysts.

The use of artificial intelligence can help broaden the horizons of existing cyber security solutions and pave the way to create new ones. As networks become larger and more complex, artificial intelligence can be a huge boon to your organization’s cyber protections. Simply put, the growing complexity of networks is beyond what human beings are capable of handling on their own. And that’s okay to acknowledge — you don’t have to be prideful. But it does leave you with answering a critical question: What are you going to do to ensure your organization’s sensitive data and customer information are secure?

Artificial intelligence in cyber security: how you can add AI to your defense

Effectively integrating artificial intelligence technology into your existing cyber security systems isn’t something that can be done overnight. As you’d guess, it takes planning, training, and groundwork preparation to ensure your systems and employees can use it to its full advantage.

In an article for Forbes, Allerin CEO and founder Naveen Joshi shares that there are many ways that AI systems can integrate with existing cyber security functions. Some of these functions include:

• Creating more accurate, biometric-based login techniques
• Detecting threats and malicious activities using predictive analytics
• Enhancing learning and analysis through natural language processing
• Securing conditional authentication and access

Once you’ve integrated AI into your cyber security solutions, your cyber security analysts and other IT security employees need to know how to effectively use it. This takes both time and training. Be sure to not neglect investing in your organization’s human element.