Hacking and cyberattacks are on the rise, posing an overwhelming threat that companies are barely equipped to deal with, due to the nature of such attacks. Ever changing, coming from unknown sources, and coming at unpredictable times, such attacks are difficult to deal with.
In response these shadowy attacks, artificial intelligence and machine learning could prove to be the adaptable defense needed to halt such attacks. Already, AI and ML are, in a sense, already in use in cybersecurity, with systems in place detecting suspicious behaviors, links, objects, etc. While it’s a tug of war between attackers and defenders, as cyber criminals continually improve on their malware to make it harder to detect, AI has already proved effective in stopping cyberattacks, one notable case being stopping a cyberattack from a Vietnamese hacking group OceanLotus.
Besides examining the malware itself, AI and ML can be utilized to examine typical user behavior and raise flags when anomalies are detected. Due its automated behavior, it’s also able to react to threats the second the attack is detected. However, these tools should not be used as an absolute authority. Such programs are prone to many false negatives/positives, and human oversight is still basically required.
Alongside that, AI and ML can be utilized by the agents behind cyberattacks just as easily by their victims. While such agents don’t have the resources available like corporations do, AI is already being used to create deepfakes for scams on both consumers and employees of companies. Such abuses of AI could provide support of stopping AI development, but the benefits raised from AI used in cyber defense and security could prove to be the saving piece against cyber attacks.
