Basic Ways AI Disrupts Our Cybersecurity Practices

Artificial Intelligence, the term which first originated in the 1950s has now emerged as a prominent buzzword all over the world. More than 15% of companies are using AI and it is proving to be one of the most powerful and game-changing technology advancements of all time. From Siri to Sophia, the technology has people noticing it and wondering how this will impact their future.

Presently, Artificial Intelligence is seen everywhere. Major industries like healthcare, education, manufacturing, and banking are investing in AI for their digital transformation. Cybersecurity, being the major concern of the digital world, is still uncertain about the impact AI will have on it. With the fast-growing cyber attacks and attackers, cybercrime is growing to become a  massively profitable business which is one of the largest threats to every firm in the world. For this very reason, many companies are implementing Artificial Intelligence techniques which automatically detect threats and fight them without human involvement.

How AI Is Enhancing Cybersecurity
Artificial Intelligence is improving cybersecurity by automating complicated methods which detect attacks and react to security breaches. This leads to improvement in monitoring incidents leading to faster detection of threats and its consequent responses. These two aspects are quite essential as they minimize the damages caused. Various Machine Learning algorithms are adapted for this process depending on the data obtained. In the field of cybersecurity, these algorithms can identify exceptions and predict threats with greater speed and accuracy.

How AI is implemented in organizations to ensure cybersecurity:

Conditional access: Authentication models are used by companies to secure important information from being accessed by unauthorized users. But when this data is being accessed remotely, it can be easily compromised by intruders.

In such cases, Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) can be used which needs more than one type of authentication and information like location, network, etc. can be collected. Using this information, the AI-powered systems can modify the access rights of users to assure data security.

Biometric verifications: The passwords used to secure the user's credit card information or personal information can be easily compromised and are vulnerable to cyber attacks. 

Hence, biometric verification methods have been introduced by deploying Artificial Intelligence for cybersecurity. The fingerprints, palm prints, and retina can be scanned accurately with the help of AI systems. These methods can be combined with passwords that are already being used in devices like smartphones.

Intrusion detection and prevention: Artificial Intelligence systems can detect intrusions in the network using various codes, algorithms, and pattern recognition. These systems can prevent such issues from occurring in the future with the help of predictive analysis by analyzing past and present data.

AI can also be a threat
Though the potentiality of AI seems like a promising opportunity to many, it comes with its own threats. It can, in fact, be used to help cyber criminals in achieving their goals as much as it helps in securing data. One of the significant issues is that AI can automate attacks on an extensive scale.

This technology has become a new tool for hackers as the independent benefits of Artificial Intelligence in cybersecurity apply to cyber attackers and their treacherous actions as well. Now, the attacks are probably more successful and personalized. The principles used by cybersecurity experts to prevent cyber attacks can also be used by hackers to develop their own AI-powered systems that can trick the existing systems by learning from them.

How to overcome the challenges
In an ideal world, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capable of detecting and removing a threat before humans. As it has the intelligence to identify abnormal or unusual behavior and prevent safety interruptions 24/7. However, it’s not always possible. 

In order to ensure cybersecurity, a half-and-half approach, where only particular processes are human responsibility and the rest is automated, is the most logical choice. Artificial Intelligence can share the burden of inspection and monitoring and take away many tedious tasks from the hands of humans. 

The logical, systematic, structural, and repeatable aspects will be handled by Artificial Intelligence whereas the traits like innovation, intuition, and cultural knowledge are to be provided by humans as machines are not capable of such qualities. Therefore, AI systems with human administration will form more flexible and robust environments which will be able to predict the surfacing methods of cyber attacks.

Conclusion:
We are far away from inventing advanced Artificial Intelligence machines to ensure complete cybersecurity. Constant investigation and advancement in Artificial Intelligence are helping the exponential growth of this technology. 

At present, the proficient skills of humans along with Artificial Intelligence will be able to complement the strengths and weaknesses of each other and give better outcomes than either one alone. 

Although, while implementing AI technology even in small scale industries, the benefits and risks of AI must be considered.

Author Bio: Amelia Emma  is a Content Marketing Manager at GreyCampus with five years rich experience on developing content for professional certification courses like PMP- Project Management Professional, PMI-ACP, Six Sigma, Prince2, AIML and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library).