Artificial Intelligence Aid Fight against Cyber Crimes

Governments and industries alike are in possession of huge volume of data, that if used wisely, can bring immense benefits to those involved. However, this vast volume of data emanating from connected devices, also provide cyber criminals with vast opportunities to access this highly informative data. Cyber criminals, hackers and other unscrupulous elements will try to steal this data and make use of it in the best way possible. Generally, the traditional rule – based systems were effective against less sophisticated cyber attacks that occurred previously. However, cyber criminals and hackers today are more technologically sophisticated, and defending against them needs more technologically superior capabilities. Additionally, there also exists a huge skills gap of professionally qualified cyber security professionals able to thwart these hacking efforts. Use of AI with ML to be a viable option It is here that the use of Artificial intelligence as a potent fighting force that can take on cyber criminals and hacks is to be considered. Governments and industries alike are making use of AI capabilities to fight off cyber security attacks. With computing power, data collection and storage capabilities increasing, artificial intelligence in association with human capabilities poses the most potent weapon against hacks and cyber criminals. Many of the cyber attacks that go undetected are caused by cyber blindness- as it is nearly impossible for security analysts to manually sift through the huge volumes unstructured data emanating every second. The longer it takes to identify a looming security threat, the greater will be the damage it will cause to your organization. Artificial intelligence, however, is able to analyze data across billions of logs per second and is able to classify, detect patterns and behavior and predict attacks before they occur. Artificial intelligence can also greatly help in threat detection and that is the reason why IBM introduced IBM Q Radar Advisor with Watson. This combines the cognitive capabilities of Watson Discovery Service and Watson Knowledge Studio with the security offerings of IBM. Ransom ware attacks that occurred this year are a pointer to the ever – increasing need to take immediate action. With qualified cyber security professionals hard to come by, turning to machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect cyber threats is the only option. Cyber attacks costing us dear Cyber security threats are projected to cause $6 trillion in damages by 2021. It is also expected that businesses will invest $1 trillion over the next five years to eliminate these threats. According to Bloomberg, compared to 2015, security incidents grew by 40% in 2016 and data breaches are expected to increase to 37% overall by the end of 2017. Even one security breach can cost an enterprise hundreds of millions of dollars and in the process also destroy customer trust. Artificial Intelligence is not a standalone option In the same vein, one should not consider artificial intelligence to be a panacea for all security threat issues either. Pitted against a determined and technologically advanced human resource, artificial intelligence can presumably be defeated in a one to one contest. What this means is that we should also be aware of its limitations. According to McAfee chief technology officer Steve Grobman, “as long as there is a shortage of human talent in the cyber security space, the industry must rely on technologies such as AI and ML to amplify the capabilities of humans”. The best option would then be to go for a hybrid approach where artificial intelligence in association with human ingenuity would help detect and eliminate every form of security threat – both covert and overt.

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