INTERVIEW
WHY AI IS A GAME CHANGER FOR CYBERSECURITY SHEIK ABIDEEN, REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR – META AT SECURONIX, ON WHY AI IS THE FUTURE OF CYBERSECURITY. Artificial Intelligence’ strongly suggests that strengthening cybersecurity defenses with AI is urgent for modern enterprises. Some of the report’s key takeaways include: • Three out of four surveyed executives say that AI/ML allows their organization to respond faster to breaches. • 69% of organisations think AI/ML is necessary to respond to cyberattacks. • Three in five firms say that using AI improves the accuracy and efficiency of cyber analysts.
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ow can AI be used to improve cybersecurity? Artificial intelligence in the cybersecurity market is projected to reach $38.2 billion by 2026 from $8.8 billion in 2019, according to Markets and Markets. Due to digital transformation, there is a massive increase in the variety and the volume of data generated today. On-prem, cloud, IoT, and social media, dark web environments have only added to the complexities for the alreadystretched security teams. Security analysts cannot analyse or investigate events at the wire speed, resulting in missed attacks and breaches. Analysing and improving cybersecurity posture is not a human-scale problem anymore. Due to this reason, companies are investing more and more in AI and machine learning technologies. AIbased security solutions are the only way an organisation can keep up with the changes and remain effective in combating modern threats. Capgemini Research Institute analysed the role of AI in cybersecurity. Their report titled ‘Reinventing Cybersecurity with
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CXO INSIGHT ME
JUNE 2022
The integration of AI in cybersecurity is becoming indispensable for organisations. However, the main roadblocks that slow down its adoption and deployment are talent acquisition, data complexity, and employing proper AI tools. According to IBM, one of the most critical barriers to AI deployment is the lack of talent. About 37% of organisations emphasized the difficulty of finding people with the appropriate level of AI expertise and knowledge. Is AI driving cybersecurity automation? The answer is a big yes. AI is accelerating the adoption of automation in the cyber security space. Areas where AI/ML is already in use include: • User and Entity Behaviour Analytics • Autonomous Threat hunting • SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) • Next-Gen SIEM and Security Analytics • Network Threat detection and response automation • XDR • Breach and Attack Simulation • Identity Risk Analytics • Threat Intelligence curation
Can AI replace human security analysts? The answer is no; however, AI will drastically change the work cyber engineers will be doing in the future. Another technology that is coming up repeatedly in today’s conversation is RPA (Robotic Process Automation). RPA and ML are two distinct but overlapping technology areas. To be very clear, RPA is a subset of AI, and it can be used to assist AI with simple tasks. With the successful integration of ML with the RPA technology, companies can replace human analysts with routine activities. For example, SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) is one such technology in use today. Due to this reason, several technology innovators are investing heavily in ML and RPA technologies together. Another factor driving AI adoption is the skills gap in cybersecurity. A Cyber Security Workforce Study from the International Information System Security Certification Consortium predicts a shortfall of 1.8 million in the cyber workforce by 2022. While this can feel like impending doom and gloom for the industry, AI, or artificial intelligence, can help quell the concerns while empowering existing cyber workers. AI and the human workforce are not in conflict with one another in this field; in fact, they complement each other. While AI may be great for processing large amounts of data or replacing autonomous manual tasks, it will never be able to replace a security analyst’s insights or understanding of the field. Nevertheless, the future is bright for AI and humans to work in tandem at the front lines of cyber defense.
