August 02, 2016
Cybercrime is a concern for many individuals and organizations. Computer system hacks are announced almost on a weekly-basis, and it seems that there is no end in sight for this growing problem. Now is the time for us to take action. But, how can we prevent ourselves from falling victim to these virtual attackers? It’s simple; we fight fire with fire. Computer scientists have developed artificial intelligences that have proven their ability of determining malicious codes in software.
IBM Watson
The “IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data”. Ample amounts of informational articles, data summaries, and web page materials are uploaded into Watson and act as its information database. If Watson is asked a question, it refers to its databank of information to determine an answer; however, Watson can answer complex questions and solve difficult problems very quickly, compared to the time it would take a human brain to complete.
Just five years ago, the power behind IBM Watson was put to the test on Jeopardy! and it is truly remarkable. It is able to communicate with humans and fully understand its surroundings. Due to Watson’s outstanding performance, IBM recently decided to expand its abilities to be used in the cybersecurity industry. Several universities will join forces to provide Watson with mass-amounts of cybersecurity data to develop its knowledge-base and prepare it to detect and fight cybercrime.
The objective is to leverage Watson’s capabilities to decipher the overwhelming volume of security data and determine patterns within cybercrimes cases; however, Watson wouldn’t be the sole decision maker when examining software codes. It would be an aid to human investigators.
Artificial Intelligence in Security
Information security professionals can struggle to quickly detect a true cyber hack. It’s not an easy task to identify suspicious activity from an external source and then define it as a cyber breach as there are many other working parts involved. Using artificial intelligence (AI) in information security would save time for the human security teams, and the AI would also be more likely to accurately report a computer system hack.
Artificial Intelligence Online explains how AI’s will impact the role of security professionals. They suggest that AI’s will play a significant role in the security sector, but they won’t replace human specialists. The AI’s are seen as a tool for security professionals as it can detect potential cybercrime activity. It would then be up to the rest of the security team to decide if they should act, or not act, to a specific situation.
What do you think about the use of artificial intelligence in this realm?
Posted By: Jaclyn Roman