Future of Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Security

Anil Kumar Kummari

With AI being introduced in every industry, the cyber security space would be no stranger to it. With advancement, new exploits and vulnerabilities could be easily identified and analysed to prevent further attacks. Incident response systems could also benefit greatly from AI. When under attack, the system will be able to identify the entry point and stop the attack as well as patch the vulnerability.

Studies show that it takes, on an average in 2016, 99 days for a company to realize that they have been compromised. Although a long way from 146 days in 2015, yet a very long time for the attackers to gain all the information they were looking for. This period is not only enough to steal data but also manipulate it without detection. This can have a great impact on the company as it makes it very difficult for the company to differentiate between the fake and the actual data.

With the advancements in AI, hopefully, all of the above problems would be able to mitigate the problems being faced.

“With AI it becomes easier to correlate data… and remove privacy”

Keeping artificial intelligence data in the shadows

One way for IT to address data privacy issues with machine learning is to "mask" the data collected, or anonymize it so that observers cannot learn specific information about a specific user. Some companies take a similar approach now with regulatory compliance, where blind enforcement policies use threat detection to determine if a device follows regulations but do not glean any identifying information. Device manufacturers have also sought to protect users in this way. For example, Apple iOS 10 added differential privacy, which recognizes app and data usage patterns among groups of users while obscuring the identities of individuals.

Amazon Becomes the First to Turn to Artificial Intelligence to Protect Data in the Cloud…

Amazon Web Services (AWS), it makes plenty of sense for Amazon's team of engineers and programmers to continue to place a substantial priority on keeping this sensitive info safe, secure, and out of sight of the prying eyes of digital intruders. However, the fate of your dealership's data (and that of countless other organizations) may not actually rest in human hands at all anymore. As the editorial team over at Forbes magazine explains, Amazon has blazed a new trial by becoming the first public cloud computing and storage service provider to turn to artificial intelligence (A.I.) to safeguard information held within AWS. Known as "Amazon Macie," this new safety measure leverages the power of machine learning in an effort to automatically discover, codify, and shield stored data on behalf of the service's users. In terms of how Amazon Macie works, this system utilizes machine learning to both understand the nature of potentially sensitive information and find security flaws within user accounts on AWS. From here, analysing and reporting issues to customers, including real-time alerts related to usage that the A.I.

Is artificial intelligence (AI) used to detect cyber-attacks, how is its success rate?

Of course, AI can be used to detect cyber-attacks. There are plenty of academic researches about detecting cyber-attacks using artificial intelligence.

The success rate of those researches varies between 85% and 99%.

In the last few years, in addition to academic researches, some products have been improved to detect cyber-attacks with the help of artificial intelligence like Dark Trace. Dark Trace claims to have more than 99% of success rate and it has a very low rate of false positives. For more details, you can check the company’s website.

AI Solutions for Cyber Security

Automation and false positives

Although informatics systems are prone to failure and attacks, they are a necessary help to overwhelmed security engineers. There is a growing shortage of cyber security specialists, and the mix of high-value actions and routine tasks should be divided between man and machine. Computers are expected to automatically perform daily tasks like analysing network traffic, granting access based on some set of rules and detecting abnormalities, while the cyber security specialists can work on designing algorithms and studying emerging threats. Removing false positives is also one of the main tasks that require human assistance and one of the reasons why AI is not ready to take over security completely.

Predictive analytics

Cyber threats have become more and more complex. Just gathering data about attacks like data breaches, malware types, and phishing activity and creating signatures is no longer enough. The new approach is to monitor a wide number of factors and identify patterns of what constitutes normal and abnormal activity, without looking for specific traces of a particular malicious activity, but for spikes or silent moments. Some companies even pair this with other AI-powered tools including natural language processing to speed up this process. Staying a step ahead of hackers will be increasingly difficult, as predictive analysis can be tricked with randomization.

Immunity

Learning from nature is effective not only in engineering but in cyber security as well. The body’s immune system is one of the best defensive lines in the living world. AI could be trained to behave like the white cells and antibodies, neutralizing threats that are not according to the known patterns without shutting down the whole system. This approach could be the cure to the adaptive malware previously discussed. The system learns from experiences and becomes stronger, just like an organism that has been exposed to the diseases, and overcomes it.

Hands-on Approach

Cybersecurity powered by AI is just the natural step in protecting vulnerable data. The race between those aiming to create safe systems and attackers is crossing into new territory, but machines are far away from taking the lead. Currently, both parties are restructuring their data and integrating systems. There are numerous corrective actions necessary from humans. This is a process, composed of multiple layers, not a one-time action. The defining factor remains the education of the humans involved, first as users then as protectors.

Reference:-

1.   http://bigdata-madesimple.com/will-artificial-intelligence-take-over-cyber-security/