How can artificial intelligence (AI) change the world of cyber security?
With cyber crime on the rise and cyber security becoming a dominant issue globally, software developers are coming up with new reasons for artificial intelligence to be appealing to businesses.
The basic foundations of AI are that it can automatically collect data, analyse it, make decisions with an understanding of the outcome, and learn from the outcomes, all while providing a conclusive response.
As a result, using AI in cyber security creates new defensive options for businesses that can be automated whilst analysing a wide range of vulnerabilities.
Previously, hackers would custom-code their own sophisticated virus or cyber hack, to target a certain business.
However, that is no longer the case.
Viruses, malware and other malicious hacks can now be sold as an intelligent solution that only requires a plug and play, which anyone can purchase and use, ultimately creating more cyber attack threats for businesses.
How can AI help?
Identifying and Preventing Threats
Using AI helps minimise threats in real time while monitoring for suspicious activities, user behaviour, and discovering network abnormalities. It will be more proficient than a person at detecting, monitoring, and quarantining cyber-attack attempts.
Fraud Detection and Policing Workplace Data
Data breaches involving company or personal information are becoming more common. Cyber hackers will collect data ranging from bank account numbers to national insurance or social security numbers in order to carry out malicious operations or to exploit as ransom.
According to the UKFinance.org, impersonation scam cases, in which criminals impersonate trusted organisations to trick victims into handing over their money, almost doubled to 39,364 cases in 2020.
Unauthorized fraud was worth £783.8 million in 2020, with the banking system already saving £1.6 billion.
A study from the National Crime Records Bureau shows that the cases of online financial fraud involving a credit or debit card have increased by more than 225% during the pandemic.
When using data or bank cards, artificial intelligence can verify that the user is using a strong enough password, or even inform the user when a password isn’t secure enough.
Responding to Data Breaches in Real-Time
The most effective approach to detect and respond to cyber attacks in real time is to integrate AI with cyber security.
With the increasing number of cyberattacks, being able to detect and respond quickly to cyber breaches is the first step in securing your company’s network.
✅ AI can assess enormous amounts of data quickly, making it far more efficient than manually detecting vulnerabilities.
✅ AI can provide alerts or respond automatically without human intervention, creating defensive patches immediately when an attack is detected.
Downsides of AI
Despite all of the enormous benefits of AI in cyber security, there are still concerns and problems that must be solved before this technology can be employed globally.
Companies are thinking about how to trust automated technologies as they replace human cyber security departments. It’s also unclear how the AI will deal with decisions, make business judgments, or deal with prejudice, fairness, transparency, and ethics.
Hackers will eventually shift their tactics to try to hack AI rather than networks, increasing the pressure on AI to be impenetrable.
Conclusion
With cyber security being a prominent topic for many businesses and a major wake-up call to tighten security by implementing various security methods such as two-factor authentication, staff security training, and network upkeep – AI will assist businesses in the future to perform all of this automatically.
Businesses will find AI to be less expensive than keeping a full cyber security department on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with the assurance that it will defend them 99.9 percent of the time.
However, hackers will experiment with various approaches, from changing the way they hack to changing who they hack. AI must also be designed in such a way that it cannot be hacked and is extremely reliable to a business.
Let us know your thoughts on AI and cyber security, or get in contact to find out how we can help your business with cyber security!
System Force IT provides 24/7 IT support and engineering help with all our services. Our IT infrastructure management team are responsible for the backbone of your business. Monitoring and maintaining both physical and virtual services in real-time.