The cyberattack surface in modern business environments is huge, and it’s continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. Cybersecurity staff often find themselves in a tricky situation to manage their cyber defenses.
Threat actors are embracing AI and ML whole-heartedly, launching more sophisticated attacks that quickly learn and adapt to our inadequate defenses.
On average business receives 10,000 alerts every day from the multiple software tools it uses to monitor cyber threats. To resolve the issues, there is a huge shortage of skilled security analysts, and they don’t want to be burdened by repetitive manual work.
These challenges underscore the need for better ways to stem the tide of cyber-attacks. To analyze and enhance an organization’s cybersecurity posture artificial intelligence is particularly well suited.
AI can help automate many tasks that a human analyst would often handle manually. These include automatically detecting unknown workstations, servers, code repositories, and other hardware and software on a network.
Popular firms including FireEye, Microsoft, and Google are developing innovative AI approaches to detect malware, and monitor the spread of fake news. One notable success is Microsoft’s Cyber Signals program that uses AI to analyze 24 trillion security signals, 40 nation-state groups, and 140 hacker groups to produce cyber threat intelligence for C-level executives.
American Federal agencies such as the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation have invested tens of millions of dollars to develop advanced AI tools for extracting insights from data generated from the dark web and open-source software platforms such as GitHub.
Additionally, AI-enabled analytics can assist in cracking the jargon and code words attackers develop to refer to their new tools, techniques, and procedures. One example is using the name Mirai to mean botnet. Hackers developed the term to hide the botnet topic from law enforcement and cyberthreat intelligence professionals.
The path ahead
Looking forward, there is massive room for growth for AI in cybersecurity. In particular, the predictions AI systems make based on the patterns they identify will help security analysts respond to emerging threats.
AI is an intriguing tool that could help stem the tide of cyberattacks and, with careful cultivation, it could become a required tool for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
The current pace of innovation in AI, however, suggests that fully automated cyber battles between AI attackers and AI defenders are likely years away.