In today’s interconnected and digitized world, numerous cybersecurity attacks such as malware attacks, phishing attacks, and data breaches occur, increasing the demand for cybersecurity professionals and advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. However, AI acts as a defender and as a challenger to cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity involves analyzing patterns from massive amounts of data to protect systems and networks from digital attacks and identify threats. The traditional approach relied heavily on signature-based detection systems, which were effective against known threats but incapable of detecting new or unknown threats, resulting in frequent cybersecurity attacks. However, AI-based solutions use machine learning algorithms that are trained using vast amounts of historical and current data to detect and respond to unknown and new threats. According to Jon Olstik’s Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, approximately “27 percent” of security professionals in 2018 wanted to use AI for “improving operations, prioritizing the right incidents, and even automating remediation tasks,” implying that the reasons for AI in cybersecurity continue to increase over time.
However, there’s another side to AI’s role in cybersecurity, and it’s more dangerous than beneficial. While it may appear that AI systems are unlikely to be hacked, this is not the case because hackers can manipulate these systems. As previously said, AI solutions employ machine learning algorithms to detect threats; nevertheless, a fundamental flaw is that vulnerability is that these models are fully dependent on the dataset. A poisoning attack occurs when an attacker modifies the dataset to fulfill their malicious goals, forcing the model to learn from the modified data and leading to more attacks.
As these rising concerns and vulnerabilities, AI-based solutions will need to be not only fast, but also safe and risk-free. AI and Cybersecurity share a complex relationship and it’s safe to conclude that Artificial Intelligence will continue to play a paradoxical yet essential role in the growing field of cybersecurity.
- Comiter, Marcus, et al. “Attacking Artificial Intelligence: AI’s Security Vulnerability and What Policymakers Can Do About It.” Belfer Center, August 2019, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/AttackingAI#toc-3-0-0. Accessed 7 July 2023.
- Moisset, Sonya. “How Security Analysts Can Use AI in Cybersecurity.” freeCodeCamp, 24 May 2023, https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-artificial-intelligence-in -cybersecurity/. Accessed 7 July 2023.
- Oltsik, Jon. “Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity: The real deal.” CSO Online, 25 January 2018, https://www.csoonline.com/article/564385/artificial-intelligence-and -cybersecurity-the-re al-deal.html. Accessed 7 July 2023.
