"How AI Is Shaping the Cybersecurity Arms Race"

Cybersecurity staff are often overwhelmed by the amount of data they must sort through to manage their cyber defenses. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) could help cybersecurity professionals find patterns in huge pools of data. Sagar Samtani, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at Indiana University, who studies AI and cybersecurity, has shared his thoughts on why AI is a necessary tool in cybersecurity operations. Samtani pointed out two main ways in which AI is strengthening cybersecurity, with the first being that it helps automate many tasks that a human analyst would typically handle manually. These tasks include looking for unknown workstations, servers, code repositories, and other hardware and software on a network. The second way AI is bolstering cybersecurity is by helping to detect patterns in large quantities of data that a human analyst cannot see. For example, human analysts can use AI to pick up on linguistic patterns of hackers posting emerging threats on platforms in the dark web, and then have the AI alert them about the detected patterns. Analytics enabled by AI can help identify the special language or code words used by hackers to refer to their tools, techniques, and procedures. This article continues to discuss the benefits of using AI in cybersecurity operations as well as common questions and concerns surrounding the role of AI. 

The Conversation reports "How AI Is Shaping the Cybersecurity Arms Race"