During the last few years, we have witnessed an increase in advanced cyber attacks. Cybercriminals utilize advanced technology to breach the digital boundary and exploit enterprises’ security vulnerabilities. No industry feels secure; security professionals do their utmost to close security gaps and strengthen their cyber defense. As new technologies pop up at an unprecedented rate, cybersecurity professionals are literally “chasing the tail”; they need time to train themselves in new systems and processes understand how they work, and adopt best practices to protect them against cyber threats.

To counter advanced technology a high-tech toolbox is needed. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have come into play and are used in the cybersecurity industry. Can this inseparable duo play a significant role in the fight against cybercriminals in a way that eliminates inefficient human behavior and perception from the equation?  Can security systems “be educated” to discover anomalies of behavioral changes as soon as they happen?

Cyber threats, AI and ML

As more businesses transform digitally, advanced cyber attacks become denser, and more “lethal” for their reputation and revenue. The proliferation of cyber threats during the last years is a fact, whilst the trend for the future is not an optimistic one. In the US the number of data breaches by the end of the third quarter of 2021 exceeded all of 2020 by 17%. Ransomware attacks are happening every 11 seconds resulting in a business downtime of more than 20 days and a massive amount of ransoms paid.

Although humans still play a significant role in cybersecurity today, technology is gradually catching up to us in several areas. AI gives computers the full responsive ability of the human mind, and ML uses existing behavior patterns to inform decision-making based on past data and conclusions with minimum (Read more...)