The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Increased Cybersecurity

Alongside many other areas in the digital world, the field of cybersecurity is also undergoing transformation with the advent of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, and more. 

These changes are not necessarily positive. The development of AI can improve how you protect your business from online attacks, but it also allows hackers to use even more creative and effective means to harm companies with an online presence, websites, and e-stores. Here’s what you need to know about this topic:

What Does AI Cybersecurity Mean?

Advancements in the field of artificial intelligence allow it to be used for monitoring, analyzing, detecting, and responding to cyber threats in real time by processing huge amounts of information and capturing "suspicious" or unusual behavior signals from a user, system, application, etc. 

For example, with AI you can largely automate the discovery, prevention, response, and investigation of cyber attacks such as Malware or many others, and do so with greater accuracy, eliminating the possibility of human error. 

Why Should You Consider Using Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity?

Organizations engaged in malicious attacks are already investing in machine learning, automation, and artificial intelligence to launch large-scale attacks against businesses and users, networks, and endpoints. And to protect yourself, you need to have equivalent technologies that allow you to process large datasets and receive timely and accurate information about potential threats, as well as to ensure you have reaction time. With correctly "trained" AI algorithms, you will have this essential element for your organization's cybersecurity.   

What Are the Benefits?

The ability of AI algorithms to process more information enables improvements in operations related to cybersecurity:

• Instant recognition and interception of cyber threats: Many existing cybersecurity solutions allow the detection of potential anomalies in user and system traffic and behavior, based on predefined rules. However, AI solutions go a step further, filtering out truly real threats and identifying hidden correlations in seemingly normal events that standard solutions (such as SIEM or XDR) can’t recognize. 
• Identification of vulnerabilities: Many organizational cyber threats are actually potential and often lie in unauthorized devices connected to the network, applications, outdated operating systems, and unprotected data. An AI solution can help you identify and eliminate these vulnerabilities before someone takes malicious advantage of them. 
• Instant analysis and “insight” from artificial intelligence: More advanced cyberattacks try to go “under the radar” of protections by changing identities, devices, applications, and infrastructures. Since AI quickly processes lots of information from various sources, such attempts can be rapidly intercepted, attracting the attention of security specialists to the potential threat. 
• Better accountability: Tools relying on AI can extract data from multiple sources and present the information in an easily understandable manner, providing visibility and enabling quick decisions. 
• Development of cybersecurity specialists: AI applications allow reports and information on cyber threats to be provided in accessible language, even for beginner specialists in the field, along with specific steps for resolving emerging cases. 

Specific AI Applications for Cybersecurity

The already mentioned logic for identifying cyber threats works to the benefit of organizations, cybersecurity solution providers, and end users in combating malicious attacks in various ways, including:

• Identity and Access Management: Artificial intelligence is often used to monitor and understand user habits when using various applications and, accordingly, to detect anomalies. If necessary, AI can trigger two-factor authentication or even block access to an account if there is reason to believe it has been compromised. 
• Cloud Security: Many organizations invest in cloud solutions for business management and rely on applications from different vendors. Often, AI is beneficial for them to deliver visibility into vulnerabilities and risks in cloud operations.
• Protection of sensitive information: The most important data in an organization can be identified and protected by AI, whether using own infrastructure or a public cloud, for example. Additionally, AI can detect attempts to "exfiltrate" data from the company, block such attempts, and inform the company of a potential threat. 
• Endpoint protection: With the help of AI, the cybersecurity team in a company can identify all endpoints used by users and keep them updated with a secure OS and protection against cyber attacks. Additionally, AI can identify malware and other signs of an attack on the organization. 
• Incident investigation and response: In case of an incident or breach of company security, IT teams are pressed for response time and the vast amount of data they must process. AI can help logically correlate different events and reach the right solutions more quickly. 

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Attack Protection

Will AI Replace Cybersecurity Specialists? 

Artificial intelligence is expected to play an increasingly prominent role in the fight against malicious hacker attacks, but not to replace the human factor. Thanks to the ability to process more data and automate processes, IT teams will become more efficient and focus on higher value-added tasks.

The Role of GenAI

Artificial intelligence, or machine learning-based solutions, have already been used for cybersecurity for over three decades, starting in their earliest forms as rule-based systems that triggered specific events or alerts when certain conditions were met (e.g., notification of potential risk when an unidentified user tries to access the system). Gradually, algorithms began to work with increasing amounts of data from various sources and to improve best practices for protection against network attacks. This led to the evolution of paradigms and the emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) solutions, which enable the creation of new content based on existing data. Over time, cybersecurity specialists have started to interact with different systems in natural language, asking specific questions without the need to master programming languages or commands. This new approach is expected to provide companies with the ability to synthesize and report data in language accessible to all, offer specific recommendations and solutions, and continuously improve processes for protection against cyber attacks. 

At AbsCloud, we also rely on the latest and proven technologies for network attack protection to offer our clients security for their business in the online environment. If you are an online store owner or software developer, or your company needs security for your ERP and CRM systems and emails, contact our team and find out how to take advantage of all the latest cybersecurity solutions in the cloud environment, ensuring business continuity and protection of your data and end users.