What Does Improving AI Mean for Cybersecurity?
What was once considered something straight out of a science-fiction movie is now becoming the newest technological craze. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made headlines over the past few weeks due to breakthroughs in the technology that allow for dynamic chat bots like ChatGPT, and art generators like DALL-E as viable tools for work and personal life. These projects have been in development for years undergoing trials and learning processes, but have now recently garnered public attention do to the ease of use and wide accessibility. Is the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence just a pop-culture fad, or does it have potential ramifications for your organizations cybersecurity?
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Most people know what artificial intelligence, or AI, is. We’ve seen it portrayed in countless movies and novels to have a general grasp of what AI looks like in the modern world. AI, at its core, is the process of creating intelligent or independent thinking machines using various algorithms and learning techniques to make them seem as real and authentic as possible. One of the main goals of artificial intelligence is to get computers to act as close as they can to real humans in their functions and thought processes. The better AI can make rational and logical decisions, the stronger it is.
Artificial Intelligence is used for automation purposes in the manufacturing industry, it may be used to detect fraud in financial institutions, and many cybersecurity companies are aided by AI in detecting network intrusions or bad actors.
However, the most popular forms of AI include OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E, both available for public use. ChatGPT is a dynamic chat bot that can create and generate a text response based off of a simple prompt. You can ask ChatGPT to write a book report, or product description and it will produce multiple paragraphs of clear and concise text. DALL-E on the other hand can be used to generate art in real time based off of a given prompt. Similar to ChatGPT, all the user has to do is give the AI a brief prompt and it will create an art piece based off the specification you gave it.
There are dozens of other forms of AI available for free or as a payed service that offer similar tools to create and design content. While these tools are fun to use and can benefit business with content generation, this is just the bare minimum of what AI can do!
What Are The Benefits?
Artificial intelligence presents many benefits to both the private and business environments. AI can be used in the automation of repetitive tasks. Implementing AI on the line, or in manufacturing environments can reduce the amount of time spent of repetitive and tedious tasks that need to get done. There are dozens of software companies that implement AI to help share some of the work load for businesses. AI can also be used to create chat bots and virtual assistants. Tools like Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana are powered by limited AI to help resolve users requests. This also applies to an AI phone answering service. You can use artificial intelligence to guide callers through your organizations various extensions to either answer their questions or send them to someone who can.
Benefits of Using AI in Cybersecurity
Of course, AI has its uses in the cybersecurity field as well. Artificial intelligence can be used to detect incoming threats to your organization. It can recognize attack patterns and signs of a potential cyber criminal trying to get a foothold into your organization. Logically, AI can also detect malware or signs of infection on a device based of its own data set and knowledge of preexisting threats. While there are many other benefits to implementing AI as part of your security plan, artificial intelligence can overall improve your network security posture by handling the bulk of intrusion detection.
Common Threats to an Organization
Unfortunately, the bad guys have the exact same access to AI as you do which means that cyber threats are beginning to evolve as bad actors utilize these tools. AI is often used to automate phishing scams and social engineering campaigns. A bad actor can set up an AI to administer these attacks while they focus on other projects, or improving upon their attack methods. This makes the process as phishing attacks mostly hand off.
Artificial Intelligence can also be used in DDoS attacks or in cooperation with botnets. You can flood an organizations servers with requests all sent and organized by an artificial intelligence profile. The relative ease and quickness of implementation means that the time to breach an organization is increasingly faster. The less time it takes to break into your network, the bigger the volume of attacks can be. Overall, in the wrong hands artificial intelligence can be used to negatively impact an organizations security posture if they aren’t prepared for an attack.
Strategies for Utilizing AI to the Fullest
How can you make AI work for you? We’ve talked about the benefits and risk to using AI in the workplace, but how can you make AI is helping your business grow and not harming it? There are a few strategies every business should use when implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace.
- Implement Strong Security Policies: The basis of every cybersecurity plan is making sure you have correctly implemented the strongest policies. It’s no different with AI. Make sure that your policies reflect and include any technology used or operated by AI.
- Audit and Test AI Systems: Make sure your are constantly monitoring and checking your AI systems so you know they are operating how they were programmed. You should know what AI systems you use and how they connect to your network and the internet. At the end of the day you should have a comprehensive knowledge of what your AI is accomplishing for you.
- Enforce Ethical AI Policies: There is a lot of debate regarding the ethical limits of artificial intelligence. For your business, it’s important to understand what AI should and shouldn’t be utilized for. Don’t use artificial intelligence to steal your competitors ideas, don’t use it to write your own malware, etc.
- Stay Informed About AI Advancements: As always the best solution to your security concerns is to be aware. Be committed to learning more about how AI works and what it’s being used for day to day. Knowing more about this concept in general can help you use artificial intelligence to better your business while also protecting your organization from people who would use AI for malicious purposes.
CorpInfoTech (Corporate Information Technologies) provides small to mid-market organizations with expert I.T. services including compliance assessment, cybersecurity penetration tests, and comprehensive business continuity planning services. CorpInfoTech can help organizations, quantify, create, refine, and mitigate the risks presented by business threatening disasters in whatever form they may be disguised.
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