IT professionals recognise that the emergence of new techniques and sophisticated approaches used by cybercriminals and data hackers are among the biggest threats to businesses, where data thefts and breaches, and malware or ransomware pose severe risks.
Jera, a nationwide provider of IT services, including IT strategy and IT security, believes that grasping AI capabilities is key for organisations looking for the latest in cutting-edge cybersecurity protection that doesn’t lag behind.
Specialist IT consultants from Jera clarify the role of AI in commercial cybersecurity and outline how machine-learning enabled resources can introduce better and more reliable ways to protect high-value digital assets.
What Is the Difference Between Conventional and AI-Based Cybersecurity?
We speak with many business clients who either know their cybersecurity defences are insufficient or who have been one of the 39% of British companies subject to a cyber-attack every 12 months.
Although the nature and frequency of those attacks vary, as does the success of the cybercriminals seeking to steal, extort or destroy valuable data, the outcomes for businesses are inevitably serious, where they experience:
- Loss of continuity and complete systems outages
- Reportable data breaches that cause reputational damage
- Lost incomes and revenues
- Increased costs repairing and restoring networks
We all understand AI algorithms, but they are often underutilised in cybersecurity. The adaptable and intelligent way an AI system functions means it can detect unusual behaviour patterns or access attempts long before an actual breach occurs.
The contrast and advantage of AI-based cybersecurity is that it forgoes the limitations of manual analysis and can respond to previously unknown threats. It has a limitless capacity to quarantine or block potential threats, match vast logs of entry requests and activities to current patterns, and deliver reporting insights against enormous volumes of security data.
How Does an AI-Enabled Security Approach Reduce Business Risks?
There has always been an imbalance between cybercriminals and the companies they attack. In reality, a cyber attacker could deploy thousands of attacks simultaneously or attack one target multiple ways, requiring just one of those attempts to succeed.
In contrast, a business must remain constantly vigilant, with no way to determine when or how a cyber-attack might occur. Any vulnerability, gap or break in their defences may put data, digital assets, consumer information and systems at risk.
AI helps by restoring balance, and while there remains a core need for skilled, experienced IT security experts to train, monitor and deploy AI-based cybersecurity systems and react to the alerts raised, the capacity provided means that we as professionals can zone in on active threats.
Your IT provider can also focus on security patching, incident responses, disaster recovery, malware analysis and other key areas, rather than allocating a large proportion of time and resources to general everyday monitoring.
What Are the Advantages of AI in Cybersecurity for Modern Businesses?
One of the primary reasons AI capabilities lend themselves so well to cybersecurity is the scope to identify new or emerging attack vectors, detect emerging or possible threats before they trigger any other alert, and automate the repetition that is integral to 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring.
As a quick recap, some of the advantages we’ve already seen in AI-enabled cybersecurity systems include:
- Reductions in false alerts, where AI processing models can differentiate between spam and malware and decrease the number of suspicious events that require further investigation, when those events have been categorised as a false alarm.
- Faster analysis of malicious or hidden files, which are often embedded in emails, texts, and documents. Malware detection rates improve substantially when AI scans every file that enters your digital infrastructure.
- Granular detection of vulnerabilities, covering every system, network, database or access point, and ensuring even complex remote and hybrid working environments are protected across the board.
- Coordinated incident responses, where our engineers and technicians can pinpoint where and how a threat or attempted attack has occurred, can use quarantine measures to hold the cyber-attack at bay and react quickly to resolve the issue.
For business clients, this means better efficiency, reduced costs, and expedited responses to cyber threats, with always-on scanning of devices and swift identification of risks while recognising familiar and trusted patterns but shutting down any behaviours that carry potential harm.
How Are Cybercriminals Also Leveraging the Power of AI?
We’re discussing AI innovations in the professional IT security landscape, but it remains important to remember that cybercriminals have access to these same functionalities. This is part of the reason it is so essential that businesses are proactive in strengthening their defences before they experience a successful hack or breach.
Cybercriminals might utilise AI to:
- Develop malware that can bypass conventional cybersecurity systems or that present new zero-day vulnerabilities businesses haven’t seen before.
- Improve the credibility of phishing attacks, targeting the tone, style and wording of communications to make it easier to convince unsuspecting staff to open a link, click a button or download a file.
- Collate and analyse data faster, using these insights to establish new attack vectors or data theft approaches that are more likely to succeed.
- Create deep fakes, such as video or audio files, used in social engineering to trick colleagues into thinking that the correspondence is genuine or from a known party.
There is no doubt that AI is a powerful resource in cybersecurity protection. Still, it can equally be used by those on the other side of a cyber-attack, with the potential for companies solely reliant on AI-powered cybersecurity systems to develop a false sense of security.
Our advice is always to ensure you work with an accomplished IT security provider who can offer real-world guidance and oversight to maximise the impact of your cybersecurity safeguards, compensating for the potential of newer AI models with less extensive data training to make mistakes or be exposed to manipulation.