Is Artificial Intelligence Increasing Or Decreasing Cybercrime?

There’s a lot of talk about the impact of new technologies on the cybersecurity domain. Artificial intelligence, in particular, is seen as a potential game-changer. But as the discussion grows stronger, how will AI’s application actually affect cybersecurity? To understand that, let’s take a look at the role artificial intelligence can play – both for cybercriminals and cybersecurity experts.

When analysing the current threat landscape, it is easy to see how fraught with challenges it is. Traditional, prevention-focused, rule-based security approaches became obsolete a while ago. The IT perimeter itself has become porous. Cybercriminals are using sophisticated, multi-layered attacks to take advantage of this situation. Recent attacks such as WannaCry highlight just how vulnerable the global IT landscape is to advanced threats.

The addition of AI into the mix will definitely worsen the situation. Using AI, cybercriminals can automate their attacks. Attacks will be swifter, their surface area larger and capable oftargetingvulnerabilities with greater efficiency. It provides an opportunity to threat actors to continue doing what they were doing, in a better and more effectiveway. The number of incidents will go up as a result, as will their impact. A single local breach could end up compromising networks and devices on a global scale.

But the most important difference that AI has made is in the realm of cyber defence.By using its massive computational power, AI can automate the collection and analysis of data. This helps in filtering out false positives and focusing on actual threats. AI can also analyse data from across the entire IT stack, giving security teams a more comprehensive view of the entire security framework, and identify vulnerabilities, threats, and incidents at a much-faster pace. This, in turn, allows for near-instant and more accurate threat detection, response, containment, mitigation, and remediation.

This is why leading cybersecurity players are now integrating AI into their security solutions to offer AI-driven Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services. These solutions allow cybersecurity experts to contextualise the global threat data, and use those insights in reference to the particular needs of a business to anticipate potential threats in advance.Such high level of insights enables them to continuously update the security frameworks as per the latest business and security requirements. By providing 24×7×365 security monitoring, AI can also identify and huntstealth attack campaigns within the network before they can cause a breach by analysing suspicious activity. Compliance violations and policy changes can also be viewed in real-time, enabling better visibility into the threat and risk postures across IT systems.

Another aspect that an AI-driven MDR approach optimises is that of security response. Machine learning algorithms constantly analyse and triage security alerts, while forensic automation determines the criticality of the event. This enables a much swifter response to actual security incidents. Security teams are also guided through the threat response and remediation with actionable measures, helping them make accurate and data-driven decisions.

AI-driven MDR can also help in optimising the post-incident security response. Incidents are investigated for impact and attacker attribute, and the entire attack chain is analysed for improving security strategies. This minimises the risk of a future breach from similar attacks.