How Cyber Security Leverages Artificial Intelligence?
Cybercriminals target endpoints, networks, data, and other IT infrastructure, causing massive financial losses for individuals, businesses, and governments. Cybercriminals’ motivations include political conflict, financial gain, reputational injury, international rivalry, and radical religious group interest. The vast majority of cyberattacks are conducted for monetary gain. REvil, STOP, Cerber, Petya, Conti, DarkSide, and BadRabbit are significant ransomware strains that have wreaked havoc on businesses and government agencies.
According to the CISCO cybersecurity threat trends report 2021, 86% of firms had at least one user attempt to connect to a phishing site, 70% had users fed harmful browser advertising, 69% had some level of unsolicited crypto mining, and 50% had ransomware-related activity. (Source: www.marketsandmarkets.com/)
Cyber threats impede business productivity and endanger essential IT infrastructure and sensitive data. The frequency of cybercrime is increasing due to the rapid development of digital transactions globally across numerous industries. The rise in enterprise data breaches and data leakage drives the demand for cybersecurity products and services. As a result, protecting against cyber-attacks has become critical for business growth. Cyber attackers use advanced tactics to execute ransomware attacks to raise funds through modest ransoms of a few hundred dollars each. As technological improvements, automated and sophisticated cyberattacks are becoming more common. As swarm cyberattacks become more common, enterprises worldwide use cybersecurity solutions and services to combat them.
Coming to the usage of AI in cyber security, speech recognition technology, such as Alexa and Siri, is made possible by intelligence technology. Google’s search engine and Facebook’s facial recognition both use it. In addition, many credit card firms have begun to deploy AI technology to assist financial institutions in preventing billions of dollars in fraud each year. But the main question is why we employ AI and machine learning principles in cyber security, and what are the applications in cyber security? Is it beneficial or harmful to any organization’s digital security?
The Artificial Intelligence in cyber security market size is valued at 22.4Bn $ in 2023 and expected to be 60.6Bn $ by 2028. (Source: www.marketsandmarkets.com/)
What is Cybersecurity?
The practice of defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from hostile intrusions is known as cyber security. It is often referred to as information technology security or electronic data security. The word is used in various contexts, from business to mobile computing. It can be classified into a few general categories like Network security, Application security, Information security, Operational security, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity, End-user Education.
Understanding AI in Cyber Security
Artificial intelligence (AI) emulates human intellect in robots built to do tasks that usually require human intelligence, such as problem-solving, decision-making, and natural language interpretation. In cyber security, for example, AI may be used to analyze massive volumes of data and uncover patterns that humans would struggle to detect. Some AI approaches utilized in cyber security include machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning.
As said above, it is hard for a typical human to identify and block all the dangers a firm faces since hackers discover new ways to conduct diverse assaults with distinct objectives yearly. For example, log4j was previously unknown while being present from the start; it was finally reintroduced in December 2021. The arrival of these new forms of unknown threats can cause tremendous harm to the network, and they can significantly impact the company if you fail to detect, identify, and prevent them.
Applications of AI in Cyber Security
One of the primary applications of AI in cyber security is threat detection and prevention. AI can analyze vast amounts of data in real time and detect anomalies that may indicate a cyber attack. This can help security teams to take proactive measures to prevent attacks before they occur. Businesses can use AI for network security and intrusion detection. For example, it can analyze network traffic and identify suspicious activity that may indicate a cyber attack. This can help security teams to respond quickly to potential threats and prevent data breaches.
In addition, AI can be used for incident response and recovery. For example, it can help security teams identify the source of a cyber attack and take appropriate action to mitigate the damage caused.
Implementation of AI in Cyber Security
AI in cyber security requires careful planning and execution. The first step is to define the goals and objectives of the AI system. This will help ensure the system aligns with the organization’s cybersecurity strategy.
Another essential factor to consider is data quality. AI systems rely on high-quality data to make accurate predictions and detect anomalies. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the data used by the AI system is correct, complete, and free from bias.
It is essential to consider the ethical implications of AI in cyber security. AI systems may make decisions that affect people’s lives and livelihoods. Therefore, ensuring that AI systems are designed and implemented fairly, transparently, and accountable is essential.
Benefits of AI in Cyber Security
- Artificial intelligence identifies unknown threats
Due to the development of malware assaults in sophisticated social engineering, the attackers try new methods to cause harm to the system; it becomes vital to migrate to updated solutions to prevent further attacks from destroying the system. Artificial intelligence combined with cyber security is one of the most significant security technology combinations for detecting and preventing unexpected threats from destroying an organization’s network infrastructure.
- Artificial Intelligence handles data
Artificial intelligence enters the scene to detect potential dangers disguised as routine activities, proving to be the greatest answer because it is pretty useful. Because of its automated nature, it looks through enormous amounts of data and analyses traffic to detect potential risks. For example, a residential proxy is a tool that uses Artificial Intelligence technology to assist humans in data transfer. Furthermore, it can detect and identify any threat that may be present in the communication.
- Artificial intelligence can better control vulnerabilities
Artificial intelligence is faster and can help us assess our systems faster than cybersecurity personnel, reducing our workload and increasing our problem-solving ability by multiples as it identifies weak points in computer systems and business networks and enables businesses to focus on more important security-related tasks. This allows you to manage vulnerability and secure business systems in real-time.
- Artificial Intelligence has grown increasingly intelligent
As the name implies, Artificial Intelligence technology is more efficient and clever because of its potential to improve network security over time. Artificial intelligence employs machine learning and deep learning to understand more about an organization’s network behavior over time. First, they recognize patterns on the network, and after recognizing them, the AI technology groups them together, and then it proceeds to determine whether there were any deviations or whether any security incidents occurred in the typical traffic. It finally reacts to them after examining the traffic.
Future of AI in Cyber Security
The future of AI in cyber security looks promising. As AI technology continues to evolve, we expect to see advancements in explainable AI, making it easier for humans to understand how AI systems make decisions. We can also expect AI-enabled decision-making, enabling AI systems to make decisions autonomously based on pre-defined rules and objectives.
To wrap up
With its numerous benefits and methodologies, AI can be a great tool for improving cyber security. As previously noted, it can aid in the detection and prevention of cyber assaults, the analysis of network data, and the rapid and effective response to incidents. Using AI in cyber security, on the other hand, necessitates careful preparation and implementation. As a result, it is critical to verify that the AI system is consistent with the organization’s cyber security strategy, that it employs high-quality data, and that it is built and executed in a fair, transparent, and accountable manner.
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