Organizations are in the middle of a chess game with cybercriminals using artificial intelligence (AI). While AI offers numerous opportunities to drive innovation and efficiency across industries, it also brings with it a new breed of cyber threats.
IT professionals report that cyber criminals are increasingly using AI and GenAI to execute sophisticated attacks faster and on a larger scale.
Security experts must work hard to stay ahead of criminals. GenAI-driven attacks present some unique challenges for organizations. Automated phishing campaigns are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and thanks to GenAI, scammers can better mimic human behavior. Consider highly persuasive social engineering techniques such as deepfakes, which mimic friends, family or colleagues. At the software level, we are also seeing autonomous malware that adapts and evolves to evade detection. How should organizations respond?
Strengthen security hygiene for AI adoption
While there is no panacea, everything starts with good security hygiene, especially as organizations adopt AI more and more rapidly.
The first step is to ensure a secure IT infrastructure, from product development to final deployment. By incorporating security measures such as multifactor authentication and role-based access control, you add an extra layer of protection that minimizes vulnerabilities. Continuous monitoring helps detect and respond to attacks in a timely manner.
Logging and monitoring tools play a key role in this. Security professionals use this data to spot anomalous behavior that could pose a risk to the organization.
In the event of a security incident, a good recovery plan is essential to quickly and efficiently regain operations and minimize disruptions.
More and more organizations are adopting a zero trust architecture to protect their environments. This approach is based on the principle that no entity inside or outside the network is trusted unless it is verified. Applying zero trust reduces the likelihood of cyber attacks because only verified activities are allowed.
Implementing AI also requires strict control over enterprise data, especially for AI systems using the public cloud. Strong data security and governance is the first requirement for any AI security strategy.
The power of AI-based security
Once you have established a strong security foundation, it is time to embrace the technology that is also being deployed by threat actors: AI. By using AI-based security solutions, organizations can increase their resilience to cyber threats.
AI-based security consists of solutions that can identify and respond to threats, both proactively and reactively. By equipping security teams with tools that leverage machine learning and self-learning technologies, threats can be detected and addressed faster. This strengthens the organization’s overall security posture.
Proactively, AI can help continuously monitor network traffic, user behavior and system logs and identify suspicious patterns that may indicate malicious activity. This early detection and prevention is crucial to mitigating potential damage from cyber attacks. AI learns and adapts to new challenges, allowing IT and security teams to stay one step ahead of criminals even as they refine their tactics and discover new vulnerabilities. This allows companies to develop a tailored security strategy that is effective against the threats in their industry.
Unfortunately, even the best secured systems cannot always prevent all attacks. In such cases, AI can also support the recovery process by automating incident response. From threat containment to data recovery and forensic analysis: AI can mitigate the impact of attacks and speed up the recovery process.
The human factor in AI security
On top of building a strong security foundation, organizations must recognize that employees are their first line of defense. Every employee should have a basic understanding of how AI makes threats more sophisticated, how to recognize them and what to do if something doesn’t add up. This becomes increasingly important as attackers deploy sophisticated spoofing attacks, such as deepfakes that make social engineering attacks even more convincing. Security professionals also need role-specific AI training so they know how malicious actors can use the technology.
The cybersecurity landscape is constantly changing. Organizations that prioritize AI-based security and a culture of continuous learning are in the best position to navigate the changing threat landscape. With a proactive and adaptive security approach, companies can confidently embrace the transformative power of AI and build a more secure future.
This is a contributed post by Koen Segers, Managing Direct BeLux at Dell Technologies. For more information on their solutions, please visit here.