8 Benefits of Using AI for Cybersecurity

Date: 4 May 2021

Artificial intelligence endeavours to simulate human intelligence. It has immense potential in cybersecurity. If harnessed correctly, Artificial Intelligence or AI systems can be trained to generate alerts for threats, identify new types of malware and protect sensitive data for organisations.  

According to TechRepublic, a midsized company gets alerts for over 200,000 cyber events every day. A team of security experts in an average company cannot deal with this volume of threats. Some of these threats will, therefore, naturally go unnoticed and cause severe damage to networks.

AI is the ideal cybersecurity solution for businesses looking to thrive online today. Security professionals need strong support from intelligent machines and advanced technologies like AI to work successfully and protect their organisations from cyber attacks. This article looks into the benefits of integrating AI with cybersecurity.

Let’s check them out: 

1. AI Learns More Over Time

As the name suggests, AI technology is intelligent, and it uses its ability to improve network security over time. It uses machine learning and deep learning to learn a business network’s behavior over time. It recognizes patterns on the network and clusters them. It then proceeds to detect any deviations or security incidents from the norm before responding to them.

The patterns that artificial neural networks learn over time can help to improve security in the future. Potential threats with similar traits to those recorded get blocked early enough. The fact that AI keeps learning makes it difficult for hackers to beat its intelligence.

2. Artificial Intelligence Identifies Unknown Threats

A human being may not be able to identify all the threats a company faces. Every year, hackers launch hundreds of millions of attacks with different motives. Unknown threats can cause massive damage to a network. Worse still is the impact they can have before you detect, identify, and prevent them.

As attackers try new tactics from sophisticated social engineering to malware attacks, it is necessary to use modern solutions to prevent them. AI has proven to be one of the best technologies in mapping and stopping unknown threats from ravaging a company.

3. AI Can Handle a Lot of Data

A lot of activity happens on a company’s network. An average mid-sized company itself has huge traffic. That means there’s a lot of data transferred between customers and the business daily. This data needs protection from malicious people and software. But then, cybersecurity personnel cannot check all the traffic for possible threats.

AI is the best solution that will help you detect any threats masked as normal activity. Its automated nature allows it to skim through massive chunks of data and traffic. Technology that uses AI, such as a residential proxy, can help you to transfer data. It can also detect and identify any threats hidden in the sea of chaotic traffic.
 

4. Better Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability management is key to securing a company’s network. As mentioned earlier, an average company deals with many threats daily. It needs to detect, identify and prevent them to be safe. Analyzing and assessing the existing security measures through AI research can help in vulnerability management.

AI helps you assess systems quicker than cybersecurity personnel, thereby increasing your problem solving ability manifold. It identifies weak points in computer systems and business networks and helps businesses focus on important security tasks. That makes it possible to manage vulnerability and secure business systems in time.
 

5. Better Overall Security

The threats that business networks face change from time to time. Hackers change their tactics every day. That makes it difficult to prioritize security tasks at a company. You may have to deal with a phishing attack along with a denial-of-service attack or ransomware at a go.

These attacks have similar potential but you must know what to deal with first. Bigger threats that can make security a challenge are human error and negligence. The solution here is to deploy AI on your network to detect all types of attacks and help you prioritize and prevent them.

6. Duplicative Processes Reduce

As mentioned earlier, attackers change their tactics often. But, the basic security best practices remain the same every day. If you hire someone to handle these tasks, they may get bored along the way. Or they could feel tired and complacent and miss an important security task and expose your network.

AI, while mimicking the best of human qualities and leaving out the shortcomings, takes care of duplicative cybersecurity processes that could bore your cybersecurity personnel. It helps check for basic security threats and prevent them on a regular basis. It also analyzes your network in depth to see if there are security holes that could be damaging to your network.
 

7. Accelerates Detection and Response Times

Threat detection is the beginning of protecting your company’s network. It would be best if you detected things like untrusted data quickly. It will save you from the irreversible damage to your network.

The best way to detect and respond to threats in time is by integrating AI with cybersecurity. AI scans your entire system and checks for any possible threats. Unlike humans, AI will identify threats extremely early and simplify your security tasks.

8. Securing Authentication

Most websites have a user account feature where one logs in to access services or buy products. Some have contact forms that visitors need to fill with sensitive information. As a company, you need an extra security layer to run such a site because it involves personal data and sensitive information. The additional security layer will ensure that your visitors are safe while browsing your network.

AI secures authentication anytime a user wants to log into their account. AI uses various tools such as facial recognition, CAPTCHA, and fingerprint scanners amongst others for identification. The information collected by these features can help to detect if a log-in attempt is genuine or not.

Hackers use credential stuffing and brute force attacks to access company networks. Once an attacker enters a user account, your whole network could be at risk.

Conclusion

Keeping your data and network secured isn’t easy in today’s business environment. You can take a decisive step towards being safer by adopting AI to strengthen your security infrastructure. There are several benefits of using AI for business security and we anticipate that very soon artificial intelligence will become an integral part of business cybersecurity.