Technology is a double-edged sword in the realm of cybersecurity. While cybersecurity professionals try to leverage technology such as AI to strengthen their defense measures, the same technology is also used to carry out cyberattacks on a large scale by malicious actors.
With advanced technology, including Generative AI, the tactics used by cybercriminals are getting more innovative and sophisticated. At the same time, these technologies offer automated threat detection, and incident response systems, as well as, assist in digital forensics. They are able to do these basic tasks at unbelievable speed, and with utmost accuracy, raising speculations that they will soon replace the cybersecurity professionals from their jobs.
But it is also evident that cybersecurity is a domain where every minute decision needs human intervention.
So, what does the future hold for AI in cybersecurity? Is it a friend or foe? And how does it is going to impact the cybersecurity workforce? Let’s explore.
The world of Cybersecurity
First, let us understand the current state of the cyber world, the looming threats, and the potential future risks. Currently, cybercrime is a booming industry, and according to CipherCloud, the global losses are projected to reach a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025. Several reasons contribute to this exponential growth of cybercrime such as:
- Increased Reliance on Technology
Today, businesses and individuals heavily rely on various types of interconnected devices and cloud-based systems. These offer a great attack surface for malicious actors.
- Innovative and sophisticated ways of cyber attacks
Cybercriminals are far more innovative than any other professionals. They devise new ways to trick the victim, and are the first to use newer technologies. This makes traditional security measures less effective.
- Rise of ransomware
Ransomware has become more common than ever, where cybercriminals keep the device and data encrypted until they pay the demanded ransom amount (mostly in the form of cryptocurrency).
These factors combinedly make the threat landscape highly complex that cybersecurity experts cannot alone tackle without the help of AI and other advanced tools.
Role of AI in Cybersecurity
AI has tremendous applications in the field of cybersecurity and it can significantly enhance cybersecurity operations by automating various tasks that in one way free up human professionals and may also lead to their displacement.
Here are some specific areas where the introduction of AI is making a notable difference:
- Threat Detection and Analysis
Modern AI-powered threat detection systems can analyze vast amounts of data related to network, user behavior, system logs, etc., and can easily identify anomalies and flag it as potential risks. Thus, security teams can detect threats faster and respond promptly to them.
- Incident Response
AI can easily automate the routine and repetitive tasks related to incident response such as isolating infected systems and data breach quarantines. This ultimately helps cybersecurity professionals to focus on work upon investigating what caused the incidents so that they work on their mitigation strategies.
- Vulnerability Management
AI can scan networks and systems efficiently to identify if there are any vulnerabilities and prioritize them based on their severity level. So, security teams can actively work to patch the most critical vulnerabilities first.
McKinsey and Company in its recent report mentioned AI can efficiently automate up to 80% of repetitive tasks and assist human cybersecurity experts in their work.
The Human Touch
Despite all the technical advancements, the human touch is an essential aspect of the cybersecurity industry. AI can automate tasks and perform them at an unprecedented speed around the clock without fatigue, however, they lack the critical thinking and decision-making skills present in cybersecurity professionals.
Some reasons why humans will always be in demand in this field:
- To understand the context
Often AI system can struggle to understand the context behind a security incident. Cybersecurity experts have the knowledge and necessary cybersecurity skills to interpret the data and make informed decisions on how to respond to them.
- Adapting to new threats
AI systems has to be continuously trained on various new and evolving attack vectors. But human professionals can use their past experience, knowledge, and creativity along with their problem-solving skills to identify and respond all kind of threats.
- Human Behavior
Social engineering attacks exploit human psychology to trick and exploit people. AI is, so far, not so advanced to replicate human interaction and social awareness, and therefore human intervention in this area becomes important.
Upskill to Stay Relevant
So far, we emphasized how technology is rapidly advancing and the ever-evolving threat landscape. So, to stay relevant in this industry, cybersecurity professionals need to continuously upgrade themselves with the latest cybersecurity skills and knowledge.
It is highly recommended that students and professionals must enroll in top cybersecurity certification programs and learn the latest cybersecurity tools and technologies.
Online cybersecurity certification programs will help them learn the latest strategies and analysis techniques. They will also understand the working of AI in cybersecurity and learn to use AI-powered tools to carry out their cybersecurity operations.
Conclusion
Cybersecurity is an evolving field, and the demand for cybersecurity professionals will always be on the rise. However, it is advisable that they must learn the latest skills and technologies to stay relevant in the industry.
