Peruse last quarter’s press releases from top cybersecurity vendors, and it’s hard to miss the focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). According to these vendors, traditional security tools are getting boosted by advanced algorithms that can analyze large amounts of event and behavioral data to trigger automated decisions that keep organizations safe from today’s threat actors. Security teams can use AI to go from identification to remediation in just and handful of minutes. In a world where threat actors operate at the speed of business, this capability at scale can mean the difference between catching a threat in time or suffering the consequences of a breach. This is great! However, AI/ML are hardly making cybersecurity solutions better. Sure, they are faster and are able to process an amazing amount of data quickly, but they aren’t casting a wider net or preventing emerging avenues that threat actors use to reach their victims. New Highly Evasive Adaptive Threats (HEAT) targeting web browsers are able to get around traditional security tools, and no amount of automation or scalability is going to change that. AI/ML is only as good as the data you feed into it. If you’re not providing the right information, your AI/ML engine isn’t going to learn or adapt on the fly to catch today’s evasive threats.
Full opinion : Exploring the role of AI in cybersecurity – Is AI revolutionizing cybersecurity?