AI cybersecurity is quickly changing how businesses assess, react to, and prevent security threats. Learn how AI-enabled tools are building the future of cybersecurity.
With cyber threats becoming increasingly complex—and unfortunately more common—many businesses today are exploring new ways to ensure their data and information can stay safe. As the digital landscape becomes more fraught with potential threats, artificial intelligence tools are quickly proving to help manage a growing volume of cybersecurity data.
Today, we’ll examine what makes AI cybersecurity tools so compelling for businesses looking to improve their security and explore a few pioneering organizations that have already integrated AI security into their day-to-day practices.
The current state of AI cybersecurity
Cyber attackers have more opportunities than ever to wreak havoc in any digital space. Thanks to more businesses starting with digital systems before building anything else (and those systems amassing and sending vast quantities of data), the available surface area cybercriminals have to work with is expanding rapidly.
This digital ecosystem is becoming increasingly impossible for human teams alone to manage and protect. The average midsize business can receive notifications for over 200,000 cyber events every day—far beyond the scope for any cybersecurity team to handle.
What’s more, many IT systems today are spread out over vast geographical regions, making it more difficult to track and follow up with threats as they happen. Coupled with the fact that hackers often hide their identities and IP addresses behind things like VPNs, it becomes almost impossible for teams to be anything other than merely reactive when threats rear their ugly heads.
This is where the new branch of AI, AI cybersecurity, is helping give power back to organizations.
What is AI cybersecurity?
AI security tools are becoming one of the most effective ways for businesses to thrive in today’s digital-first world. Incredibly well-suited to taking the burden of information management away from human teams, artificial intelligence (AI) can transform the way businesses handle a variety of cybersecurity measures and processes. Much of AI cybersecurity starts with automation.
From information gathering to threat detection and response, there are a variety of critical cybersecurity processes that can be handled by AI alone. Some still need human intervention, but the number is significantly less for businesses using AI cybersecurity. The tools AI use require machine learning or natural language processing (NLP) to assist in tasks, including scanning daily alerts for patterns to determine what needs human attention and what doesn’t.
Additionally, AI can actively discover new threats to your system. When used in conjunction with traditional threat detection methods, this can vastly improve your detection rate and cut down on false positives. More on the benefits of AI cybersecurity below.
Benefits of AI cybersecurity
AI can handle enormous amounts of data
With internet users worldwide generating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, the amount of data businesses must sift through to make decisions is staggering. No matter how large, a human team will never be equipped to assess 100% of the daily threats a company may encounter. But AI is an excellent skimmer. It can process vast quantities of data quickly and efficiently, flagging threats in real-time.
Reduce the amount of time your team spends on redundant tasks
Many of the daily tasks and processes of organizational security are repetitive (read: boring but necessary). And while that’s not a negative thing, teams forced to do the same tasks each day can easily fall into autopilot mode and miss critical threats. AI tools automate these menial tasks, allowing your teams to focus on more critical, engaging work—therefore increasing your employee retention, too.
AI can learn to do a better job
One of AI’s greatest assets is its ability to learn and grow in capabilities over time. As your algorithms continue to detect and respond to threats, they will begin to see patterns more quickly in the data it’s presented with, making it more likely to catch things without human intervention.
It can identify new threats
As hackers learn to change and evolve their tactics continuously, it’s becoming increasingly crucial for businesses to stay three steps ahead. AI eventually learns to recognize even the most minor patterns and stop new threats before they enter your system.
Improves overall security
Human error and lack of foresight are two of the biggest threats to a company’s cybersecurity. It goes without saying that removing the need for 100% human oversight can significantly improve security outcomes.
Downsides of AI security
It needs a lot of (good) data to work
Artificial intelligence algorithms are all trained on data sets. The more high-quality data you can input, the better. If you don’t have the time or resources to obtain many data sets of malicious codes, malware codes, and other anomalies, your AI solution won’t work as intended.
Cybercriminals can learn from AI
It’s unfortunate that hackers are all-too-aware of new and emerging cybersecurity strategies and even learn from existing AI tools to improve their attacks or make them resistant to detection by algorithms.
AI security takes a lot of resources
Like we mentioned above, training algorithms take a lot of time and resources. Plus, things like computing power and data storage can take up a lot of space both physically and in your security budget.
How businesses are integrating AI cybersecurity into their processes today
Here’s a rundown of how some big industry players have adopted AI into their cybersecurity strategies.
1. IBM’s Watson
The computing giant’s cognitive learning platform Watson has become a boon for the company in helping detect threats through machine learning algorithms.
2. Google
If you’ve ever used Gmail, you’ll know that Google has a surprisingly accurate rate of detecting and filtering out spam messages. This is made possible by deep learning.
This platform offers risk prediction in real-time along with tools to proactively manage security breaches. Through automation, BreachControl makes it easier for teams to focus on higher-level security work.
With cyber-attacks costing businesses millions of dollars and weeks of recovery time each year, it’s clear that traditional security measures simply don’t work in today’s landscape. With more than just your reputation on the line, it’s imperative organizations look into the benefits AI security measures can provide.
Want to learn more about how AI cybersecurity tools can help your business stay safe? Reach out today to access our curated AI affiliate network, which can help bring AI and other emerging technologies to the forefront of your security strategy.
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