The rapid advance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer for a huge variety of sectors from technology to healthcare, helping companies make giant leaps and greater understand their customers.

Whilst AI will continue to add great value to businesses in the future, like any other technology, its use can also have a negative impact on the cybersecurity of businesses.

How, you ask? Well, join us as we explain how the rise of AI will impact cybersecurity.

How AI is assisting hackers

One of the key risks to businesses is that hackers are now able to use AI to improve their malware and develop more advanced attacks. Hackers can quickly learn information about vulnerabilities by testing large amounts of random inputs through AI-assisted automation, enabling multiple simultaneous attacks.

Hackers can also utilise AI to exploit flaws in security systems much faster, which is naturally a major concern for businesses of all sizes. These flaws can be easily exploited and used to launch large-scale denial-of-service or ransomware attacks.

Just last year, European media retailer MediaMarkt was hit by a Hive ransomware attack. The ransom to regain control is thought to have been $50 million.

Why AI is becoming more important to businesses

AI enables businesses to automate tasks, reduce human workload and streamline processes. Workforce shortages can often be resolved by automating tasks, businesses can also reduce payroll costs because fewer employees are required when work is completed by automation tools.

Additionally, AI can also improve cybersecurity by alerting businesses of unusual, or suspicious activity. A wide range of AI-based systems have been developed to provide greater cybersecurity protection, including vulnerability management, phishing detection and automatic network security monitoring.

AI can even be used to gather data and identify any patterns that indicate any unusual activity that requires investigation. It is now possible to predict what hackers will do based on their previous actions, to then put relevant security solutions into place to defend against the predicted attack.

AI is also used to monitor key data centre processes, such as backup power and power consumption, alerting the necessary personnel when there is an issue that could affect security.

The use of AI is also useful in authenticity detection and password protection. AI helps to prevent unauthorised parties from compromising password vulnerabilities by flagging weak passwords in addition to identifying unusual user details, such as location.

Machine learning can also enable security systems to learn from past successful security attacks alongside thwarted attack attempts; this reduces incident response times, helping to minimise any business disruption.

Through advances in the capabilities of AI, many businesses will benefit from a more proactive approach to cybersecurity. AI can detect threats in advance rather than reacting when an attack has already happened, limiting financial and reputational damage.

Conclusion

While AI can be used in a negative way by hackers who use it to exploit business systems, developments in AI are also driving major cybersecurity improvements.

Unfortunately, the war against cyber threats is a constant, growing problem around the world. Cybercriminals will continue to utilise AI in new ways to design more sophisticated attacks.

Businesses should prioritise training employees to be more knowledgeable about cyber-attacks as well as how to prevent them; because many types of cyber-attacks target employees, rather than just looking for system vulnerabilities.

Training should be implemented to not only educate employees but to also develop a culture of information security within an organisation to provide a higher level of defence against cyber-threats.

Bob’s Business is an industry-leading training provider, specialising in cybersecurity training solutions. With our award-winning phishing simulations, we instil effective behavioural change within employees, enabling them to actively combat attacks and contribute to your business’ level of defence.

We have years of experience developing bespoke training programmes developed around specific industry risks, from government to retail.

Click here to find out more about the training courses we provide to help drive culture change and reduce your level of risk.