This article has been written by Khadeeja Zaidi, persuing the Diploma Programme in Cyber Law, FinTech Regulations and Technology Contracts from LawSIkho.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The future is evolving digital at an astounding speed, and the transition is only likely to get faster. Digitisation means that everything is moving at a lightning pace – industry, media, fashion, new services, and so on. The customer gets what he or she wants immediately because the service provider has the ability to offer that.
Whereas the amenities and perks of this digital world are plenty of, it also brings with it a number of drawbacks. One of the most significant and devastating risks it creates is that our private information is at risk as never before. Numerous cases of identity theft, financial loss, as well as cyber threats have occurred in the last decade or so. Data breaches in nature are very common and affect every person, every enterprise and every government. People are progressing towards a period in which malicious hackers can attain their objectives in any part of the world at any moment; the need for cybersecurity was never more crucial than it is now.
A normal cyberattack is an opportunity by intruders or cyber fraudsters to locate, modify, or disrupt a user’s device or network in an unauthorised manner. Structured, designed and computed manipulation of technology has the effect of affecting computer networks and systems to disrupt organisations and operations that depend on each other.
Is AI & Machine Learning a threat to Cyber Security?
Despite AI’s highly extraordinary capabilities, the possibility of attackers arming and using it to improve and extend their threats is a major threat. One of its main issues is that cybercriminals will use AI to automate cyber attacks on a large scale. Currently, our intruders depend on human capital to craft and organise their attacks. Cybercrime and cybersecurity are going to change – not for the better – if and when they learn to use AI and machine learning to do the job adequately.
One such important problem is that just as developers can deploy AI and machine learning to balance human resource shortages and reduce cybersecurity costs, the intruders could also use it for the same reason. The funds and resources needed to conduct and manage such threats would go down significantly – a greater vulnerability to cybersecurity and significantly low funding for the cybercriminal.
Even more development in AI could also come with new forms of cyberattacks. AI can also hack into the insecurity of the machine much quicker and stronger than humans can. AI can be used to obscure attacks so efficiently that one can never realise that their network or computer has been impaired.
Thus, the three major consequences of AI for the threat environment are the rise in current cyberattacks, the emergence of new threats and also the variability in the form of current threats.
How’s the AI a game changer to Cyber Security?
Whereas the future appears to be gloomy, technological advancements have also had significant effects on cybersecurity. However, one big game-changer in the cybersecurity industry is the methods and techniques invented and sponsored by AI and ML as a component.
AI is no longer just a catchphrase and is widely used across all sorts of industries. Customer support, education, digitalisation, etc. are just a few of all those industries where AI has driven progress through advancements. This also plays a major role in the current struggle against cyber threats.
ML for Cyber Attack Identification
Organisations must be trained to predict a cyber threat in advance and are required to be allowed to counter whatever the intruders are trying to accomplish. ML is a component of AI that has proved to be incredibly effective when it comes to the detection of cyber threats based on the analysis as well as the prediction of threats before they exploit weaknesses in the database networks.
ML allows desktops to use and modify equations depending on the statistics they obtain, develop from and identify the required changes. In a cyber defence perspective, this would mean that ML allows the computer to anticipate threats and to detect any abnormalities with much greater precision than any individual could do.
Standard technology depends much more on existing records and cannot make adjustments in the manner that AI can do. The conventional technique cannot cope along with the latest hacking methods and tactics that AI can do. In fact, the amount of cyber attacks people face on a daily basis is just too much for humans and is best managed by AI.
AI for Cybersecurity
Cybercriminals are expert at embracing any technology or invention that gives them an advantage over cybersecurity defences. Initial scenario studies and reports suggest that general people are already experiencing the latest effect: protecting against ‘solid’ AI – where intruders use systems that work, think and act like humans – and also against ‘ineffective’ or ‘restrictive’ AI – wherever systems are patterned on human actions to perform specific tasks. Given its potential usage, AI is anticipated to push massive reforms in the cybersecurity field and to impact on four main cybersecurity issues mostly in the coming years.
Issue 1: Increased complexity of intruders
Intruders of different levels of complexity – from social reformers to national governments – are investing their initiatives in locating possibilities that raise expectations of the maximum return on the investment. Institutions can drive risk-based control investment opportunities in order to reduce their impact to hackers. Since organisations develop their cybersecurity systems, they are less beneficial targets.
Ai has the ability to improve the density of threats as the automated processes and the improvement of fraudulent services further eliminate obstacles to attack entry and implementation. AI-enabled technology could also strengthen the ability of attackers to retain both their confidentiality and distance from their perpetrators in surroundings where the offence has already been attributed and investigated.
Issue 2: Insufficiency
Being the protectors, they need to be successful in preventing threats everytime, while the attackers ought to be successful just once. Institutions must concentrate on developing the right skills and a team that can incorporate processes and innovations that decrease this inconsistency.
Although AI technologies reduce uncertainty and expense, increase scale and restrict faults, intruders can also use AI to swing the balance. Hackers would be able to optimize the most resource-intensive components of their attacks and circumvent the safeguards put in place against them. ‘Narrow’ AI forecasts for the coming years suggest that AI-enabled flaws detectors that can accelerate the detection and manipulation of deficiencies by attackers may question existing predictive maintenance and cyber security skills.
Issue 3: Enhancing the Assault Surface / Digitalisation of Processes
Even though companies continue to expand, so does the size and sophistication of their technologies and database properties, which means that attackers have more opportunities to fully exploit. To stay a step ahead of attackers, companies should introduce advanced technologies like AI and automation to create better defensive ‘choke points’ rather than spreading initiatives evenly throughout the entire region.
Furthermore, the use of AI in company operations does have the ability to change the essence of cyber threats and properties that need to be protected. Increased focus on AI-enabled technologies can help pave the way for attackers to intervene with core business processes, disrupting both internal decision-making as well as customer relations.
Issue 4: Threat control and organisational integration
Companies aim to run their businesses safely and effectively. A strong security environment that eventually decreases ability to compete and restricts the motivation of the workforce is a convenientan convenient response to changes in the threat and deterrent environment. Conversely, security professionals could use a risk-based strategy by setting governance and interiority limits, notifying operational officials of their cyber security positions, and identify measures to continually improve them.
Increased operational capability can indeed be accomplished while using technologies such as AI to improve the safety engagement of operational and technology squads. For instance, using software currently available, the moment needed to complete periodic security procedures can be significantly decreased by using AI to automate asset or time-intensive elements of these procedures. Enhancing the productivity of the screening process reduces the friction related with the safety standards for operational teams. Advancements in AI technology are anticipated to offer more possibilities to enhance cyber security processes and promote the balance of risk.
Is Artificial Intelligence the rescuer?
The advantage that AI has is that it is always evolving, and so are the hackers. Surveillance AI systems can quickly determine and differentiate bad behaviours from good behaviours. Since these devices usually develop and evolve, they will appear collaboratively human technicians to detect risks and prevent assaults. Smartphone and open source technologies just make conventional cyber protection more challenging, and thus, AI seems to be the way forward.
Since AI developments and smart technology build the ability to find their way into industry, infringement for coverage as well as other types of coverage would not be important to consider.
AI helps us to foresee a cyber attack before it actually occurs, thus stopping it from occurring. It’s definitely a novel concept especially in the field of Internet security. Previously, MIT researchers have created a framework called ‘AI2’ focused on AI, capable of predicting, detecting and preventing 85 percent of cyber attacks with high precision.
Through this digital century of cyber vulnerabilities, hackers are replacing their conventional, hyper attacks, instead of attacking the weakest link throughout the cyber-chain: human beings. As a result, businesses need to react rapidly and adopt faster-moving detection methods, using big data and even AI to actually deal with the threat.
Conclusion
In this changing cyber risk world, companies will have to protect themselves against increasingly dynamic and interconnected threats. Key innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, like AI, have the power to change a range of structural changes in the world. Also in coming years, AI will determine the threats to organisations and, through the Future Series: Cybercrime 2025 Initiative, the World Economic Forum and its collaborators, will aim to identify the appropriate measures required to reduce and address these challenges.
AI can optimize data and enhance its interpretation of emerging security threats through machine learning techniques. With a deep justification scheme, AI can recognise connections between threats, locate profiles of its most aggressive intruders, and determine vulnerable information and information systems.
Although the idea of having AI to take over completely is very enticing, everyone must note that AI comprises a number of things and therefore is very flexible. Though AI is doing cyber security miracles, it is also finding its way to hackers for illicit activities. When misused, it can inflict enormous harm and become an even bigger threat to cyber security.
While the technology advances, intruders are also upgrading their methods of attack, methods and resources for the manipulation of individuals and organisations. There’s really no question that AI is extremely useful, but it’s a bit of a double-edged weapon. Both AI-ML can also be used to track and avoid assaults before they occur. Since AI sees more improvement, we would be spectators about how far we can take this innovation to be both a benefit and a disadvantage on cyber security and people in general.
At last, AI saves a lot of time and money which would otherwise be needed to recruit and train IT security experts. Certainly, businesses will still require a security manager (knowledgeable individual) or a small staff to regulate the operation, however, these expenditures will be significantly decreased as a result of technology.
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