Cyber attacks, cyber defense, and AI are very related and relevant topics in today’s world. Firstly, it is essential to state that the progress made in Artificial Intelligence serves both parties. Both attackers and defenders make use of AI. Attackers make their attacks more sophisticated, efficient, and harder to spot, while defenders can detect and prevent ransomware attacks more effectively. The global market for AI-based cybersecurity is growing at a fast pace. Products are estimated to reach $133.8 billion by 2030.
AI AND CYBER DEFENSE: HOW DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SUPPORTS THE WORK OF CYBER INVESTIGATORS?
Artificial Intelligence plays a significant role in cyber defense and incident response: Nowadays, it allows us to scan and analyze vast amounts of data, detect patterns, and identify problems and anomalies that humans alone may miss. It allows us to be much more reactive and treat real-time cyber threats. Therefore, it is an excellent support to the work of cyber investigators and plays a significant role in enhancing cybersecurity practices. To give you an overview, here are different ways AI can serve cybersecurity purposes:
1. Threat Detection & fraud prevention
We can train AI algorithms to identify malicious behavior patterns, such as phishing attacks or malware infections. They can also analyze network traffic to identify suspicious activity and alert security teams.
Anomaly detection via AI Algorithms can learn to label behaviors as “normal” or not, therefore identifying any activity that deviates from this typical pattern. | Behavioral Analysis AI can be used to analyze organizational behaviors, which include patterns of access and logging activities. Very useful to quickly identify a potential threat. | Natural language processing (NLP) It is a text recognition type of AI. It can analyze text-based communications through various chats, emails, and codes to identify potential threats. | Image and voice recognition. We can train AI to identify and recognize images and voices. |
2. VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT
#1: Automated scanning via AI
#2: Risk assessment
#1: Automated scanning via artificial intelligence
Largely used to scan large amounts of data, files, networks, and devices to identify vulnerabilities and security breaches.
#2: Risk assessment
Uses historical records to assess the current risk level.
#3: Remediation Recommendations
AI can protect against threats based on identified vulnerabilities.
#4: Establishing Priorities
AI algorithms can tell you which threats to anticipate and vulnerabilities to prioritize based on factors such as importance level and potential impacts.
3. INCIDENT RESPONSE
Automated detection and responses
Contextual analysis
Predictive analytics