While cybersecurity has been an essential area of concern for most IT companies and businesses depending on technology, it is the expertise with the latest technologies like AI and Machine Learning that can give them a competitive lead in terms of information security and data safety. These days AI and Machine Learning technologies are in the limelight for many industries and use cases. Cybersecurity remains to be one of the most important beneficiaries of these new technologies.
Here through the length of this post, we are going to explain the role of AI and Machine Learning for cybersecurity.
How can AI and machine learning contribute to cybersecurity?
In spite of having the capability of mimicking human intelligence, AI is still far short of capabilities to replace human intelligence and the ways of understanding a problem and finding solutions. But when it is about reducing errors and faults in the operational tasks and when it is about finding anomalies and irregularities, AI is way ahead of the human efficiency and capability. Apart from adding a robust security layer AI is super efficient in evaluating the mistakes and all the errors that human intelligence is prone to commit.
Machine learning, on the other hand, by analyzing the data from the past and evaluating the use cases for the future, can actually address the user needs in the most befitting manner. The algorithms based on AI and Machine Learning are basically fed the data-driven insights through the months of data pertaining to the activity logs. Based on this, machine learning algorithms can actually predict future occurrences and user behavior and can suggest proactive measures accordingly.
When it comes to cybersecurity, time is a crucial element as it is important for the security measures to work faster to keep pace with the hackers and all kinds of cybersecurity threats. Instead of giving enough time to the hackers or the threatening malware, the security system must act proactively and breach the security gap at the earliest. It is for the app developers, security experts, and tools to stay ahead of the security threats and challenges, and that is exactly where AI and Machine Learning-based tools really excel.
Machine learning for cybersecurity: Key challenges and data sets
For machine learning technology to play a big role in cybersecurity, the biggest challenge on the path is to detect and potential security threats or malware. Timely detection of the security threat or dangerous malware is the key to gain a competitive and proactive lead in providing security safeguards. But while this sounds quite promising for the advocates of machine learning in cybersecurity, we must not forget the challenges and problems involved in it.
Datasets accessibility
To investigate the cybersecurity issues in IT systems, one, first of all, needs access to appropriate datasets. In fact, without relevant datasets, you just cannot evaluate the security risks and threats at all. Now, in spite of making use of AI and machine learning technologies involving a variety of different data sets, the security measures can terribly lack access to appropriate datasets for risk and threat evaluation. This has been a major challenge for implementing AI and machine learning for cybersecurity.
The limitations corresponding to uses and effects
As of now, the use of machine learning happens to be very limited for tightening information security. It has been mainly restricted to the understanding of user inputs, user behavior, and user interactions. Now, the researchers working on different ML projects feel that the whole cyber community can play an important role in making cybersecurity more active. The community of ML experts should be more active and engaging to help reap the benefits of cybersecurity measures.
In this respect, we must take cognizance of the fact that there is a sheer lack of global cybersecurity experts who have the necessary knowledge and skills to work with AI and machine learning based security algorithms. On the other hand, we should be hopeful about the future of intelligent cybersecurity mechanisms simply because of the over-abundant data we already have that can be put under sophisticated analytics tools for garnering important data-driven insights.
ML and AI-based cybersecurity will play a big role in the quality of life
While AI and ML continue to play a powerful role in improving cybersecurity, by that same role, they are positively enhancing the quality of human life as well. They are now being featured as part of security tools, surveillance camera systems, and remote monitoring systems. From being crucial parts of modern home security systems in which AI and ML can help detecting unknown faces, threatening sounds, and irregularities to send instant alert notification measures to the homeowners.
It has been seen that cybersecurity systems based on machine learning are particularly useful in respect of detecting security threats and cyber-attacks. By recognizing a number of similarities among various security threats and anomalies that are detected over a period of time, a machine learning algorithm can unveil the security risks and threats that are in the making.
The future impact of AI and machine learning in cybersecurity
Both AI and machine learning seem to have the answer for all cybersecurity threats, but as of now, most of the companies and organizations around the world are not yet prepared to deal with such threats.
To deal with the cybersecurity threats of the future, businesses need to embrace AI and ML-based tools and security mechanisms. They also need to have a solid understanding of how machine learning based algorithms work, and how they can enhance security, how to train ML algorithms, and the most suitable ML algorithm training methods. Apart from all these, businesses also need to have a solid understanding of various ML cases for dealing with security threats.
Conclusion
In spite of all the challenges and issues, AI and ML are likely to remain as the most promising and era-defining technologies for dealing with cybersecurity threats and issues of all types. The role of AI and ML in cybersecurity can only be bigger if the cybersecurity continues to enhance their understanding and expertise with these new technology fields.
