The cybersecurity industry has been building on top of itself for decades to stay steps ahead of hackers. Over the years, what we continue to learn is nothing is safe from hackers, including Artificial intelligence.
The beauty of AI is that it can essentially do what humans do, but much more quickly. According to an article in Bloomberg, an advanced technique called neural network, allows the machine to mimic the structure and processes of the human brain, which is made through training data. AI is often used in cybersecurity to catch malicious software.
Why is AI so effective in security?
- Improves security posture
- Automated detection and response
- Cuts down financial costs
Although effective, the machine isn’t entirely void of flaws. A concept called data poisoning has been making its way back into the news. Data poisoning is when information used to train machines is manipulated by inserting bad information. This concept allows hackers to seamlessly get around AI defenses.
The problem with data poisoning is when Cybersecurity experts crafted a way to utilize the capabilities of AI. The intention was to have less human interactions. As we already know, machines are not immune to error, which is why it should not be completely hands off to human cross checks. Often these manipulations are caught too late and creates havoc.
How can we prevent this from happening?
- Use your own training data and limit who can label it
- Cybersecurity companies check the data that is fed to the learning machine to prevent anomalies
- Bloomberg said AI models should be regularly checked for proper labeling in the training data for accuracy
We know that AI are not a perfect system, and they should not be relied on entirely human free. They are still an excellent tool for professionals to utilize.
For more information on AI, data poisoning or our plan to protect your data, please contact us here today.