AI – Weapon of Attack or Security?

Artificial intelligence plays a massive role in protecting data networks, but it is also key in cybersecurity attacks. How do organizations stay secure amid AI uncertainty?

Every time there is a leap in human knowledge, this knowledge can be turned into a weapon. This is true in every domain, but especially cybersecurity. AI is the latest example of human ingenuity, and it is being used in both positive and negative ways. But there is a way in which we can counter the cybersecurity AI threat.

Firstly, at Fortinet we have seen the made huge investments in AI, specifically contextual Gen AI, to permanently improve our product. Our 4T analyzer enables you to make sense of logs and firewalls and it centralizes these into one database of events.

There is also big data artificial intelligence, which allows us to process and analyze trillions of events using machine learning, and network operation artificial intelligence where you can correlate events happening at completely different levels and locations.

Also read: The Differences between Data Privacy and Big Data Security Solutions

With this information, you can heal your networks from end-to-end. Another domain is the network operation artificial intelligence. This allows AI to make sense of very large amounts of data so that correlation can be found, helping to detect leakage of information.

So, at least four AI domains are involved simultaneously in a sophisticated cybersecurity architecture. That combination of AI tools enables a far better and holistic key world artificial intelligence network of cybersecurity.

However, if we take a step back, we know AI has brought with it a permanent race between the dark creativity of threat actors and the relentless innovations of companies. As ever, the moment we take a step ahead, so do the bad actors.

But what is the best approach to overcome the bottlenecks in security operations? Unfortunately, there is no universal remedy here. However, here are some best practices.

Firstly, businesses must make cybersecurity strategies which include a compulsory failsafe for new, innovative technologies. Also, they must ensure they have the staff to execute them – easier said than done given the skill shortage in the industry and that finding an expert in new technologies, such as AI, is always tricky given they are new disciplines.

As such, we must allow ourselves the proper level of investment in training. Doing so will plug the growing skills gap. Fortinet has done this with our network security experts, providing all the necessary knowledge for them in the recruitment, training, and operational processes. It is a process which has become a mindset.

The second thing is that the CISOs of tomorrow must be primarily fluent in the business before they become fluent in cybersecurity. This is because they need to speak to their c-suite and board about security transformation in the very words of the company itself.

The necessary cybersecurity and platformization transformation they will conduct will be spoken of in the company jargon, otherwise it will likely not be approved. The necessary security tasks, training, best practices, and behavior roles that must be adopted and adapted will be in the language of the industry, it’s the only way the CISO will be recognized as a peers at the board level.