Intelligent CISO Issue 17 | Page 68

decrypting myths Rather than replacing people, AI is augmenting what people can do by taking some of the heavy lifting away which is better suited to a machine. we’re a long way off this yet. However, many companies are currently using AI- based security to varying degrees. We can see the biggest comparisons of AI-based malware protection compared to traditional signature-based anti-virus when we look at the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack. Organisations that were using an AI-threat solution were already protected, days before the attack took place. Other organisations using traditional anti-virus protection were not so well prepared. This is because the AI solution was able to identify tell-tale patterns in malware characteristics before they became attacks, meaning that the security was on the front foot and the enterprise was already protected. Traditional anti-virus products are still keeping organisations safe from thousands of malware files, but it’s hard to keep up. AI will eventually offer a far more sophisticated solution for organisations. If a system remains just behind this curve, sticking to traditional anti-virus methods, then you can guarantee that security exploits will occur. Myth three: Artificial Intelligence will take jobs away from humans Rather than replacing people, AI is augmenting what people can do by 68 of malware characteristics, there is also a reduction in old remediation techniques. This actually improves the work quality of security professionals who can focus their activity on interesting stuff like root cause analysis rather than endless log reviews. Neil Kell, Director of Evolve Secure Solutions, part of the CSI group taking some of the heavy lifting away which is better suited to a machine. Not only does AI offer improved mitigation by analysing thousands In the event of a successful attack, humans spend lots of time firefighting. Patches need to be updated and the integrity of backups need to be checked to ensure that these have not been compromised before they are restored. This remedial work is costly and unproductive. AI assists with the processing part of malware detection, ensuring that patches Issue 17 | www.intelligentciso.com