This article highlights the need to utilize AI solutions to help businesses outsmart the next generation of cyberattacks. Hackers are continuously developing new and innovative ways to infiltrate computer systems, and traditional security measures are often no match for their evolving tactics. One of the most concerning trends is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cyberattacks.
Survey of Security Leaders
A recent report by Darktrace, a leader in AI cybersecurity, titled “Darktrace State of AI Cybersecurity 2024 Report” reveals the severity of this threat. The report, based on a survey of nearly 1,800 security leaders and practitioners in 14 countries, paints a concerning picture as seen below:
This gap between the growing threat and the lack of preparedness clearly shows the urgent need for businesses to adopt advanced security solutions that leverage AI. Here’s why:
AI Threats are Here to Stay: The “Darktrace State of AI Cybersecurity 2024 Report” emphasizes that cybercriminals are increasingly turning to AI to automate attacks, exploit vulnerabilities faster, and bypass traditional security measures. These AI-powered attacks can be relentless and difficult to detect for human analysts alone.
Beyond Signature-Based Detection: Traditional security solutions often rely on identifying malicious code based on known signatures. However, AI-powered attacks can be constantly evolving and may not match pre-defined patterns. AI-based security, on the other hand, can learn and adapt to recognize unusual activity, even if it hasn’t been seen before.
Human Expertise Amplified: Don’t worry, AI isn’t replacing human security analysts. Instead, it empowers them. Advanced security solutions like Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security platform can automate tedious tasks like sifting through mountains of data and prioritizing real threats. It also enables teams to visualize and correlate events across a broad set of domains including cloud, email, endpoint, identity, network, and Operational Technology (OT) environments. This frees up valuable time for security professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and incident response.
Proactive Defense: Traditional security is often reactive, waiting for an attack to happen before responding. AI-powered solutions can analyze vast amounts of data to identify potential weaknesses in your system before they’re exploited. This proactive approach allows you to address security gaps and prevent breaches before they occur.
Taking Action: Choosing the Right AI Security Solution
The good news is, that businesses don’t have to become AI experts themselves to benefit from this technology. Leading cybersecurity companies like Darktrace offer other comprehensive AI-powered security platforms that are easy to deploy and manage e.g.
Darktrace/Email includes features that use AI to stop early-stage phishing, spot early symptoms of account compromise across a broader range of communications, and increase SOC (Security Operation Center) efficiency.
Darktrace/OT includes new capabilities that go beyond traditional Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) scoring to help organizations identify, prioritize, mitigate, and continuously review the risks and potential attack paths that are specific to their OT infrastructure.
Darktrace PREVENT/End-to-End provides pre-breach preparation, and includes the ability to analyze firewall rules, allowing it to show a more comprehensive view of potential unauthorized traversal points or attack paths within IT, OT, or in between, identifying risks in configuration high-impact vulnerabilities, and external threats.
Here are some key features to look for in an AI security solution:
Self-Learning AI: The platform should be able to continuously learn about your specific network environment and identify normal behavior. This allows it to detect deviations that might indicate a potential attack without disrupting business operations.Here are some key features to look for in an AI security solution:
Automated Threat Detection and Response: The solution should automate the process of identifying and responding to threats, reducing the burden on your security team.
Actionable Insights: The platform should provide clear and actionable insights that help you understand and address potential security risks.
Conclusion
When the right AI is applied responsibly to the right cybersecurity challenge, the impact on both the human security team and the business is profound. AI can bring machine speed and scale to some of the most time-intensive, error-prone, and psychologically draining aspects of cyber defense, helping businesses gain significant advantages in the ongoing cybersecurity fight as it is well known that proactive cyber readiness requires the right mix of people, processes, and technology.
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