Organisations are becoming so overwhelmed with data relating to cybersecurity that they are having to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) in order to keep abreast of it all.
850 security professionals from ten different countries were surveyed as part of Capgemini’s new study Reinventing cyber security with artificial intelligence. More than half of them reported that they were using or looking to use AI because their organisations had too much data to deal with.
The machine-learning systems can help by processing huge volumes of data in a way that would be impossible for human analysts. Some cyber-attacks can be identified and blocked automatically. The AI can also alert human analysts to areas of data that they should be paying particular attention to, allowing them to respond to threats more effectively.
Capgemini UK’s Chief Security Strategist Richard Starnes said: ‘The networks are getting so complicated, and there is so much noise coming in, that we have to have some sort of mechanism for coming right down and getting human eyes on what actually matters, rather than a bank of security analysts shifting minutia.’
He added: ‘The skillset for cyber security is at a massive premium. When you can hire people, they cost you an absolute fortune. We need to make the economics of cyber security work for companies – and that involves getting these analysts with their eyes on stuff that matters.’
Cyber security in an ‘arms race’ with criminals
He added that cyber security professionals were currently engaged in an ‘arms race’ with cyber-criminals. These criminals were able to use automated attacks that could propagate and spread at high speed. The report listed ‘spear phishing’ as an example. Using this automated technique, fraudsters could target potential victims with phishing tweets and emails six times faster than a human could. AI provides a vital way to defend against this kind of automated attack, and the study found that two-thirds of organisations surveyed planned to use cyber security involving AI by 2020.
The survey found that more than two-thirds (69%) of respondents said that they would not be able to respond effectively to critical threats without some level of automation. Around half planned to increase their budgets by 29% to incorporate spending on AI, while about one in ten planned to up their budgets by 40% or more.
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