AI, game-changing technology revolutionising cybersecurity

• Increasing demand beckons as businesses protect sensitive data

By Alexander Chiejina.

Advanced security measures are essential in today’s digital environment, where cyber threats are continually evolving and getting more complex. An IBM report titled “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023” revealed that the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million, a 15 percent increase over 3 years.

With 51 percent of organisations planning to increase security investments as a result of a breach, including incident response (IR) planning and testing, employee training, and threat detection and response tools, the IBM report stated that the average savings for organisations that use security AI and automation extensively is $1.76 million compared to organisations that do not.

As 82 percent of cyber security breaches involved data stored in the cloud, the report added that organisations must look for solutions that provide visibility across hybrid environments and protect data as it moves across clouds, databases, apps, and services.

Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming a ground-breaking technology that has the power to completely transform cybersecurity, providing a new level of defence against cyber-attacks by harnessing the power of intelligent algorithms, and enabling enterprises to proactively detect and reduce risks.

In order to protect enterprises’ data from potential breaches, Olufemi Ariyo, co-founder of Freesia Networks, said that AI-powered technologies can detect and respond to cyber-attacks in real-time.

“Threat detection is one of the main applications of AI in cybersecurity. Conventional security solutions rely on rule-based systems, which are only capable of identifying known threats. But with artificial intelligence (AI), robots may be taught to recognize patterns and behaviours that can point to an impending attack. It is becoming increasingly obvious that conventional measures fall short of providing effective protection for sensitive information due to the sophistication of cybercriminals’ techniques. AI-based intelligent, adaptive, and continuously enhanced solutions are the wave of the future. By offering proactive protection against changing threats and lowering business or product risk exposure through automated processes, these technologies can transform cybersecurity,” Ariyo explained.

Threat detection is one of the areas where AI is having a big influence. To detect known threats, traditional security systems mainly rely on established rules and signatures. However, these techniques frequently fall short against cutting-edge threats that are growing quickly. AI, on the other hand, excels at spotting and thwarting previously unnoticed dangers through the analysis of enormous datasets and the discovery of minute signs of harmful activity.

“Machine learning algorithms are used by AI-powered systems to learn from massive volumes of data and spot patterns that human analysts would miss. AI algorithms may find abnormalities, discover potential weaknesses, and anticipate future attack vectors by continuously studying and adjusting to new data,” according to a statement from WhizHack Technologies.

The power of AI, particularly deep learning and machine learning approaches, is being increasingly embraced by tech giants like IBM, ZeroHack, and others to build complete threat detection and remediation platforms.

An established research and advisory company called Gartner claims that “AI and machine learning techniques are evolving cybersecurity practices through pattern recognition and anomaly detection, enabling faster, more accurate threat identification and response.” 

This remark emphasises the importance of AI in changing cybersecurity procedures and underlines its efficiency in fending against contemporary attacks.

Adopting AI-powered solutions is essential for enterprises looking to protect their networks, data, and reputation in the context of a quickly changing cybersecurity ecosystem. However, as more companies realise how critical it is to protect their sensitive data, there are a lot of job openings due to the growing demand for cybersecurity.

Given the impact that cybersecurity can have on a business, business leaders have been advised to provide guidance on the essential elements of developing a responsible AI strategy, emphasising the need for data privacy and security, developing and implementing ethical frameworks, and minimising biases. This is done in light of the potential impact cybersecurity can have on organisations. Organisations would need to develop strong cybersecurity plans and successfully manage their digital and physical assets by understanding the dangers and opportunities related to generative AI.