Unseen Threats and Unsung Heroes: AI in Cybersecurity

💡AI TRIVIA

Microsoft leads the way in using AI to boost cybersecurity defenses. Their AI-powered tools, like Microsoft Copilot for Security, are vital for spotting, investigating, and handling complex threats. These tools use generative AI to offer real-time insights and automated responses, making security operations teams much more effective and efficient.

📈 AI See You: Trends and News

AI in Cybersecurity makes waves the past few days. From gloomy news such as the infamous “Microsoft Outage” that affected the world, to happier ones such as the impact of AI in a lot of industries. Here’s a short rundown of what happened recently:

Microsoft Outage

A major global IT outage is hitting companies from banks to airlines, all tied to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based in Texas. On Friday, CrowdStrike ran into a big problem due to a glitch in a software update. This update clashed with Windows, causing systems to crash.

WatsonX ushers a New Era for AI

Tech Mahindra and IBM are teaming up to push global AI adoption.

They're combining Tech Mahindra’s AI services with IBM’s watsonx AI and data platform.

Customers can leverage IBM watsonx’s features and Tech Mahindra’s expertise to create new AI services, automate tasks, boost AI model reliability, and deploy scalable AI across hybrid cloud and on-premises setups.

Kunal Purohit, Tech Mahindra’s chief digital services officer, aims to transform businesses responsibly with generative AI.

“This partnership with IBM can drive digital transformation and promote global business growth,” Purohit said.

A Groundbreaking Impact

Generative AI (gen AI) offers a big chance for leaders to shape their organizations' futures. McKinsey says gen AI could boost the economy by $2.6 to $4.4 trillion annually, increasing AI's impact by 15 to 40%. In tech, media, and telecom, new gen AI uses might add $380 to $690 billion—$60 to $100 billion in telecom, $80 to $130 billion in media, and $240 to $460 billion in high tech. Within three years, anything not tied to AI might seem outdated or ineffective.

🛠️ Leveraging AI in Your Business: Using AI for Cybersecurity

Any business will flourish with AI. Especially with data a big thing now, business owners alike place heavy emphasis on security. Here’s some of the benefits AI can provide:

Securing Data in Hybrid Cloud Setups

Securing data in hybrid cloud setups is crucial. AI tools can find hidden data, keep an eye on unusual data access, and alert cybersecurity teams to potential threats. This can save valuable time in spotting and fixing issues on the spot.

Identifying and ranking threats accurately

AI-driven risk analysis boosts the accuracy and prioritization of threats. It creates detailed incident summaries for high-quality alerts and automates responses, speeding up investigations and triage by around 55%. This technology also spots vulnerabilities in threat environments and helps protect against cybercriminals and cyber crime.

Enhancing user access and security

AI can strike the right balance between security and user experience by assessing the risk of each login and validating users with behavioral data. This makes access easier for verified users and cuts fraud costs by up to 90%. Additionally, AI helps block phishing, malware, and other threats, ensuring robust security within the system.

Read more here: https://www.ibm.com/ai-cybersecurity#:~:text=AI-powered

📰 In the Know: How is AI Used for Cybersecurity

Sure, you know the benefits. Now here’s what it can do for you and your business:

1.) Boosting understaffed security teams

AI is stepping in to assist security teams and enhance their outcomes. A vast majority of IT leaders (93%) are already using or thinking about using AI and ML to boost their security abilities. Those who have adopted AI are seeing improvements in handling Tier 1 threats, spotting zero-day attacks, and cutting down on false positives and noise.

Thanks to these early successes, more than half of executives (52%) believe generative AI will help them better utilize resources, capacity, talent, and skills.

2.) Spotting threats in Real Time

Generative AI is now essential for spotting threats. It helps quickly identify patterns and anomalies, efficiently sort through alerts, and discard false alarms. This speeds up organizations' ability to find new threats dramatically.

3.) More comprehensive incident response

Generative AI is doing wonders for incident response in cybersecurity. It offers security analysts proven strategies from past incidents, speeding up their response times. Plus, it keeps learning from new incidents to refine these strategies. Organizations can even use generative AI to automate the creation of incident response reports.

🔧 AI Tools Spotlight

Google might remember your password with decent security, but here’s an added layer of protection. Here are some AI tools and Quick uses to utilize for your business:

1.) Google Authenticator

Google Authenticator is a mobile app that adds an extra layer of security for websites and online services using two-factor authentication (2FA). It helps confirm a user's identity before granting access to secure resources.

2.) LastPass

LastPass is a handy tool for managing your passwords. The basic version offers a web interface and comes with add-ons for different web browsers. It also has apps for many smartphones and supports bookmarklets.

3.) 1Password

1Password makes generating, storing, and autofilling passwords a breeze for all your online accounts, on any device. Since weak and reused passwords often cause security issues, a password manager is a simple way to protect yourself, your family, or your business.

 🏬 Prime Examples

Wonder who uses AI in their cybersecurity? Meet the frontrunners:

1.) IBM

The QRadar suite uses advanced AI and automation to speed up how quickly threats are detected and responded to. IBM will roll out new generative AI security features in early 2024 to further simplify manual tasks and make better use of security teams’ time and skills. These features include:

Creating quick summaries of security cases and incidents that can be shared with various stakeholders in just one click Automatically generating searches to spot threats using simple language descriptions of attack behavior and patterns Helping analysts quickly grasp security log data by offering clear explanations of system events Interpreting and summarizing crucial threat intelligence

And of course,

2.) Google

Google has just unveiled Google Threat Intelligence, a new service that combines Mandiant's frontline expertise, crowdsourced threat intelligence from VirusTotal's million-plus users, and the Gemini AI model.

Gemini is an AI-driven tool that offers conversational search across Google's extensive threat intelligence database, helping users quickly understand and defend against threats. In the past, making threat intelligence useful was time-consuming and slow. Google Threat Intelligence changes this by using Gemini to analyze suspect code and summarize its findings, helping security pros fight malware and other threats more efficiently.

If you want to have this level of security, send an email to [email protected] or visit their website for end-to-end and tailored AI Solutions for you.

💡 Pro Tip of the Day

Using password managers effectively is like having a trusted ally guarding your digital life. First, choose a reputable manager and let it generate strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts. Save these passwords within the manager, and don’t forget to secure the manager itself with a rock-solid master password. Enable two-factor authentication for added security. Regularly update your master password and review your saved passwords for any weak links. Keep the manager’s software up to date to fend off potential threats. By following these steps, you can ensure your online security stays tight and hassle-free.

🔥 Tough Questions

How can AI help in cybersecurity when one of people’s fears is AI is that it invades their data and privacy?

🤔 Intrigued by AI's Potential, But Unsure of the Next Step?

We get it! This issue might have you brimming with possibilities, but where do you begin? The AI StandUp is made with ❤️ by The BrainTrust and we are here to bridge the gap. Head over to our website, or simply reply to this email with your specific questions. Let's turn your AI curiosity into a game-changing reality.

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