How AI Tools Can Boost Your Cyber Threat Detection and Response Times

Are you a small or medium-sized business wondering if artificial intelligence (AI) can benefit your organization and how you can optimize the technology to propel your business?

If so, you’re not alone. These days, AI is all the buzz; you can’t go anywhere without hearing somebody talking about it. The applications for AI are seemingly endless.

Some U.S. businesses have already started adopting the technology to improve efficiencies and productivity. But if you’re like many small and medium-sized companies, you’ve probably been more hesitant, wondering how you can capitalize on the trend.

Believe it or not, you may already be using it. AI is rapidly transforming the IT cybersecurity landscape. Much of the IT industry is quickly ramping up its adoption of various AI tools to help organizations dramatically increase their network security posture.

If your business isn’t taking advantage of some of the latest AI-enabled security measures, you are likely missing out on critical tools that could safeguard your sensitive data from malware that could lead to a data breach or other cyber incident. 

After reading this article, you will learn the 5 key areas where AI-powered cybersecurity tools can better protect your IT infrastructure from cybercriminals on the prowl for security gaps.

What Is Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)?

Within AI, generative AI (GenAI or GAI), is surging in popularity. GenAI is a technology that has actually been around since the 1960s with the introduction of the chatbot.

GenAI is a machine learning model that trains on data to create a wide variety of content, including text, speech, images, music, animation, sounds, videos, 3D models, software code, and product design.

GANs and variational autoencoders (VAEs) are the most common types of GenAI being used today. In general, GANs tend to be more widely used to generate multimedia, while VAEs see more use in predictive data analysis, data compression, anomaly detection, and facial recognition, among other things.

As a result, VAEs are usually used in AI-backed cybersecurity software because of their ability to analyze vast amounts of data in real time to detect suspicious behavior.

For this article, we will simply use the broader AI term.  

How Is AI Being Incorporated Into Cybersecurity Solutions?

The trend to incorporate AI into various security software and applications is seeing explosive growth.

That’s because with its machine learning and adaptive capabilities, AI solutions are light years more advanced in proactively safeguarding your IT environment than traditional methods.

The benefits of using AI in your cybersecurity systems are that it significantly enhances your ability to monitor your IT environment 24/7, detect and prioritize suspicious activity, and deploy an automated response to neutralize the threat.

Here are 5 critical areas AI is being used in cybersecurity:

1. Antivirus and anti-malware software:

• Scans volumes of data in real time across your entire IT environment to zero in on behavior patterns and quickly identify malware, ransomware, or other threats.
  
  
• Deploys threat hunting and continuous monitoring to detect new and emerging threats through machine learning and behavior analysis. It uses algorithms rather than traditional direct programming to constantly study threat characteristics and patterns, learn from them, and then make decisions or recommendations.

2. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms

• Analyzes traffic patterns involving users, devices, applications, and systems in real-time across your IT landscape to detect unusual activity. It acts like a threat-seeking missile to flag irregularities and alert your cybersecurity team, who can then further evaluate the incident.
  
  
• It can also block user accounts or lock down specific endpoints if it suspects an attempted phishing attack or other malicious activity.
  
  
• Once a threat is verified, AI and machine learning tools can be deployed to contain the threat and destroy it before it has a chance to encrypt your files or infiltrate your network.

3. Endpoint protection

• Uses continuous learning to recognize the ever-changing schemes being used by malicious actors. This deep machine learning helps the endpoint detection and response plan rapidly spot threats at your endpoints, whether the threat is internal or external.
  
  
• AI can automate your response to a suspected cyber intruder and take immediate steps to block it at the device.
  
  
• By leveraging AI, your endpoint protection platform can increase security visibility across your digital footprint—including data, files, applications, and other systems outside of your firewall, cloud storage, and remote devices.

Related Article: EDR vs XDR vs MDR: Which Endpoint Protection System Is Right For You?

4. Vulnerability gaps

• AI-powered vulnerability scans (VulScan) look at your security patches, third-party software, and other parts of your security platform. After compiling the data, it will generate a score on your security resilience.
  
  While the scan results do not include information on corrective steps, it is useful to know where to focus your attention.
  
  
• AI solutions can predict breaches using tools such as an automated penetration test. This type of test uses machine learning software that can simulate cyberattacks anywhere across your IT environment to highlight security flaws.

Related Article: What's The Difference Between A Vulnerability Scan & Penetration Test?

5. Employee security awareness training

• Employee security awareness training vendors such as KnowBe4 integrates AI in their education modules to customize the experience for each individual, depending on their knowledge and risk profile (new hire, password strength, etc).
  
  
• Since nearly all cyber attacks are the result of human error, this type of personalized employee security awareness training educates your staff about the many different phishing attacks and other cyber threats to avoid. This ultimately helps keep your sensitive data secure. 

Related Article: Why Employee Security Awareness Training Helps Prevent Cyber Incidents

Are AI Cybersecurity Solutions Right For My Business?

As we stated earlier in the article, software providers and other IT vendors have been incorporating AI technologies into their products for some time. The trend is only going to continue to grow.

After reading this article, you now understand how you can leverage AI within today's advanced cybersecurity tools to better safeguard your sensitive data and strengthen your organization’s security resilience.

Before you make any kind of software or technology investment, however, we recommend that you perform an audit to determine all of your physical and virtual assets. Then, you can assess your existing security systems and identify security gaps.

Click the button and fill out this form to get your free cybersecurity checklist to see if your company’s cybersecurity plan follows industry best practices.

If you're still unsure about which kinds of AI solutions may be right for your company or how to implement them, you may be considering reaching out to a managed IT services provider.

We understand that managed IT services is not right for everyone—if you already have knowledgeable cybersecurity professionals in house, for instance.

But if you don’t have the expert staff to take on such a project, then you may be in need of external support. If so, we strongly encourage you to do your research on the different options out there to make sure you find a company that will meet your current and future IT goals.

As consumers ourselves, we understand the importance of researching before buying. To help save you time, we've even done some of the legwork for you. Read this article to see how we stack up against one of our competitors.

If you’d prefer to talk to someone directly about your cybersecurity concerns, regulatory security compliance issues, or any other IT-related issues, click the button and one of our IT experts will reach out promptly to see if we might be a good fit to work with.