| | DECEMBER 20219CIOReviewmobile devices contain an impressive array of sensors to detect light, sound, motion, atmospheric pressure, etc. These sensors are generating millions of data points every day--rich information to feed ML algorithms.5. More emerging applications: Last, but not least, the increased performance and accessibility of AI and ML have fueled growth in the number of practical applications. There are now AI applications that can help your doctor diagnose symptoms and come up with better treatment plans, AI-enabled stock market trading applications, and even AI-powered home vacuum robots. In addition to these applications, the last several years have also seen an increase in the use of AI/ML in information security. Information security offers ripe grounds for AI and ML for several reasons:1. The "needle in a haystack" problem: Much of cyber and information security involves looking for something "bad" in enormous stacks of data. AI algorithms, through their ability to classify data, are particularly suited to helping pick out anomalous events and sort out the "bad" from the "good."2. The "Three V" problem: A constant in information security is that the velocity, variety, and volume of threats will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. Dealing with these threats daily can result in alert fatigue in security analysts, and manually addressing these threats is simply not scalable in the long term. Teaching machines to deal with threats and take automated actions based on those threats is necessary for us to keep pace with the future threat environment.3 We should let humans do what humans do best. Far from replacing human analysts, we should allow machines to do the types of task in which they excel, e.g. sorting and classifying large volumes, of data, and allow the humans to do what they do best ­ analyze big picture data and look for human motivations behind threat actions. There are many higher-level tasks that can be done by human analysts if they had the time do so. AI and ML applications can perform the more menial task and free up time for the humans to spend doing those instead.Perhaps the most compelling motivator in deciding whether we should use AI for information security is that, for all the good that AI promises to bring, it also brings it share of threats. From unintentional actions by an unconstrained AI algorithm to actual intentional, malicious threats, AI can have its dark side. These intentional threats can be devising malware that mimics the use of human-powered "advanced persistent threat" actors to evade detection and burrow deep inside computer networks, to actual physical threats like outfitting swarms of drones with weapons and AI technology to create new forms of high-tech cyber terrorism. Finding and countering these threats is best done with AI itself- fighting AI with AI.In summary, although AI and ML can be (and probably are) liberally used as buzzwords in marketing material, it's clear that this isn't merely snake oil. AI, for better or worse, is a part of our society and will play a central role in our future. Having cyber defensive capabilities that take advantage of AI/ML technology will be crucial in making the future secure, even as it may lead to a new form of the arms race. Artificial intelligence or AI is the branch of computer science that is concerned with the automation of intelligent behaviorPaige H. Adams
< Page 8 | Page 10 >