Faced with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies around the world had to overcome unprecedented challenges, from suddenly having to adapt to remote work environments to closing out physical locations and transferring their business online. But, increasing online presence and growing reliance on digital infrastructure also brought a myriad of new cybersecurity threats that most companies are unprepared to deal with. The solution is not to abandon digital transformation, stop using the Internet and go back on all of the developments. Instead, we should embrace technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to create an effective cybersecurity strategy to prevent emerging threats.
The changes in the digital landscape
While some companies had already started with digital transformation before the COVID-19 pandemic started, many were left struggling. They had to quickly decide what to do to keep their business going, even after their physical locations had to close their doors. Nobody was left unaffected, from retail stores, banks to even medical practices. While some businesses had to work on creating their online presence from the start, others had to adopt remote work models, but all had to learn how to embrace digital technologies rapidly. This has resulted in increased online presence and changes in digital infrastructure, completely changing the current digital landscape.
Dealing with a pandemic and sudden business changes was challenging, but the digital transformation process happened relatively painlessly, thanks to technological developments. For some businesses, this actually made an enormous difference in a positive direction, as embracing the technology advancements helped them to reach new audiences and expand their reach. Others decided to continue with remote work or introduced a hybrid work model after they discovered their employees preferred it, with the added benefit of a company experiencing reduced utility costs. Technological developments, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning, made this process a little bit easier for them. They are already making changes in our everyday lives without us even realizing we are using it in navigational apps, chatbots or even entertainment platforms such as Netflix, Disney or Prime.
But, not everything was as positive as cybercriminals capitalized on the vulnerabilities presented by this sudden digital shift. Since businesses had to embrace transformation quickly, some of them overlooked security, and cybercriminals promptly jumped on the opportunity to exploit it. Phishing attacks, new account fraud, identity theft, data breaches and a number of other cybersecurity threats have become more prevalent, with cybercriminals using technology to make the attacks more sophisticated and harder to trace. Traditional cybersecurity solutions are no longer enough to fight against these evolving threats. Thankfully, artificial intelligence solutions can strengthen security and provide effective protection from sophisticated threats.
The Rise of AI in Cybersecurity
Cybercriminals are using every means at their disposal to evolve their malicious actions to ensure they are harder to trace and will be able to reach more unsuspecting victims. They quickly embrace any new technological advancement that can help them stay ahead of traditional security strategies. Often it can take days or weeks to discover the attack has even happened, as a study from IBM shows that, on average, it takes over 200 days for companies to discover a breach and then another 73 to fix it. This is not acceptable, especially considering how much a data breach can damage a company’s reputation.
Artificial intelligence has become a real game-changer in all industries, with even celebrities predicting changes it can make in entertainment. This is especially true when it comes to the cybersecurity sector. Cybersecurity solutions that use AI can analyze large volumes of data from various sources, internal and external, to identify patterns that indicate legitimate users and patterns usually associated with malicious actions. They can then use this information to detect any discrepancies that might indicate fraudulent activity and stop it in real-time. From stopping account takeover fraud by noticing differences in standard user behavior to preventing data breaches by recognizing the attempt based on data collected from past incidents, AI brings a new level of sophistication to cybersecurity defenses.
Using AI in cybersecurity also allows businesses to take a proactive approach instead of just reacting after the damage has already been done. Not only can it detect fraudulent activities in real-time, but it can also identify unknown or zero-day threats and even new emerging ones. Zero-day threats exploit unknown vulnerabilities in software or hardware that developers didn’t have a chance to patch just yet. Since this vulnerability hasn’t been exploited before, it won’t match any known cyber attacks, making it impossible for traditional security methods to recognize and prevent it. With AI solutions, the situation is quite different. Not only can it be used to identify potential weaknesses in the infrastructure, but it can also use analyzed data to identify differences in behavior or suspicious patterns that might indicate the presence of a new threat and even predict potential security risks.
AI can also improve incident response capabilities by automating time-consuming and repetitive tasks. When there is a danger of a security threat, AI systems can automatically process all necessary steps, from triggering the alert and analyzing the incident data to initiating predefined response actions. This allows businesses to reduce response times and minimize the risk of false positives, significantly reducing user friction.
Conclusion
In the post-pandemic landscape, cybersecurity has never been as critical. With our growing online presence and evolving threats, becoming a target of an attack is no longer a distant possibility but a reality. Cybercriminals use all technological advancements at their disposal to create new sophisticated threats that are harder to trace and can penetrate traditional security defenses. Defense strategies needed to change, which is where AI comes into the picture. From preventing cyberattacks such as new account fraud, data breaches or account takeovers to identifying threats and fortifying current security infrastructure, AI is an irreplaceable tool in combating the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats. As businesses and cybercriminals continue to adapt to the digital era, the role of AI in strengthening cybersecurity will only become more critical.