The digital age has opened up numerous opportunities for us, but at the same time we are exposed to entirely new cyber threats. Never before we have been as connected as we are today – across all sectors and areas of life, in industry, business and society. Especially through the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, processes are becoming more and more automated and optimized. The challenge for cybersecurity is that every exchange of data must be secured and protected from unauthorized access.
Furthermore, cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to compromise networks and steal sensitive data. These techniques are becoming increasingly advanced and can be difficult to detect by humans or traditional defense solutions. For this reason, organizations are looking to AI techniques to strengthen their cybersecurity defense plan. Artificial intelligence in cybersecurity can help companies understand and defend against these threats.
How can companies protect themselves against cyber risks?
As already mentioned, the application of AI has significantly impacted people’s lives. We now have machines that can drive cars, understand verbal commands, distinguish images, and play games. This is the reason why AI and machine learning have become indispensable to information security, as these technologies are able to quickly analyze millions of data sets and detect a wide range of cyber threats – from malware threats to phishing attacks, ransomware and zero-day vulnerabilities. These technologies are constantly learning, using data from past cyberattacks to identify potential threats.
Regarding IT security, companies must ensure that they develop and operate a holistic security concept. In addition to using the appropriate protection products such as firewalls, virus protection or backups, this also includes active management of the IT components. All network components must not only be permanently patched and updated, but also continuously monitored. This ensures that security gaps are detected as quickly as possible.
- Monitoring
IT monitoring tools can be used not only to continuously monitor networks, servers, applications and other IT components to ensure that they are functioning properly, but to measure the performance of IT systems and detect security incidents, as well. Active monitoring is usually difficult for companies to implement, which is why support from a managed service provider is advisable. AI for cybersecurity can help you detect threats masquerading as normal traffic, and can process and analyze a large amount of data more thoroughly and in less time.
- Managed services and AI- supported tools
A managed service is responsible for the provision and management of a company’s IT infrastructure. In doing so, we ensure that the customer’s IT infrastructure is always available and functional. Integrated services such as update management and monitoring, significantly increase the IT security. Of course the MSP use special software and AI-supported tools to ensure that potential attackers do not take advantage of artificial intelligence.
- Vulnerability Management
Proper vulnerability management is the best way to secure an organization’s network. As mentioned earlier, a lot of traffic flows through an organization’s network, and it is imperative to detect, identify, and protect that traffic from malicious access.
Unlike human security personnel, AI can quickly learn network behavior to identify vulnerabilities in the system, allowing organizations to focus on ways to mitigate those risks. In this way, vulnerability management can be improved and the enterprise can secure its network systems in a timely manner.
- Threat detection and prevention
Given the speed at which cyber threats evolve, it’s a fact that traditional rules-based security systems can’t keep up. This is where AI systems come into play. AI technologies are equipped with advanced algorithms that detect malware activity, perform pattern recognition and identify anomalous behavior before the system is compromised. Machine learning algorithms can learn from historical data and behavior patterns to identify new and emerging threats, including malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks.
- Risk Prediction
AI systems can help identify your IT inventory, a documented record of all tangible and intangible assets. Cybercriminals are always trying to target these assets. Using AI in cybersecurity, you can predict how and when a cyberattack will occur and plan accordingly to allocate resources to the most vulnerable areas.
- Automated incident response
One of the key benefits of incident response automation is its ability to significantly reduce the time it takes to detect, respond to security threats and remediate security incidents. AI and ML-powered tools can monitor network traffic, user behavior, and system logs to detect unusual activities that may indicate a cyberattack. This allows organizations to identify potential threats much more quickly than would be possible using manual methods, enabling them to take action before any significant damage is done.
Cyberattacks are becoming more advanced, and cybercriminals are finding more creative ways to carry out their evil plans. That’s why companies are turning to AI to strengthen their defenses and mitigate cyber risks. AI offers so many cybersecurity benefits, including vulnerability management, risk prediction, threat detection, and network traffic monitoring. We hope this article has given you some insight into the use of AI in cybersecurity.