Cybersecurity threats can ruin a business. Financial loss, operational shutdowns, and reputational damage can be devastating. Even more so, losing consumer trust can paralyze a business, making it harder to attract new buyers, clients, or partners.
Unfortunately, in today’s data-driven, digital world, cybersecurity attacks are becoming increasingly more common. Data breaches, ransomware, and malware can exploit a business’s operations and make it too easy for criminals to gain access to personal information.
One thread of hope for businesses and consumers alike is AI. This revolutionary technology can anticipate threats before they occur, saving businesses from ruin and distraught. By moving from a reactive to a proactive mindset, businesses can be assured that they’re doing all they can to protect themselves and their clients. More so, moving beyond known threats to stop new ones can make businesses more resilient. This will be more and more important as attackers are also leveraging AI to become smarter in their phishing and other malware tactics.
For customer-facing businesses, AI-powered systems can be extremely valuable in deterring cybersecurity attacks in the years ahead. Read on to learn why.
AI Makes Breaches More Difficult for Attackers
AI is a powerful tool in predicting cybersecurity attacks and responding to threats more accurately and efficiently. Businesses and organizations that rely on AI-driven tools can greatly reduce data breaches and their repercussions.
How? Well, AI works quickly to analyze data, searching the dark web for suspicious chatter and analyzing historical trends to monitor network traffic, system logs, and user behavior. This analysis is a huge undertaking, one that a single human being can’t do alone. AI is continuously scanning forums, marketplaces, chat platforms, and other sources to quickly identify any potential threats. When a threat is predicted, it will respond immediately to prevent it from happening in the first place.
This is known as predictive threat intelligence, or PTI. By foreseeing emerging threats before they’re widely used by an attacker, AI, along with machine learning and big data analytics, can shift the narrative from reactive to anticipatory or proactive. With this type of technology, businesses can focus their security efforts and finances on optimizing systems that are the most likely to be attacked.
AI can even suggest ways in which to best protect different systems. For consumer-facing businesses, this may mean creating various layers of protection. Strong passwords, mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and customer data encryption can keep clients’ personal and financial information safe. Other protective measures that an AI tool may suggest include Web Application Firewalls (WAF), secure hosting, and upgrading to more secure payment systems, such as PCI DSS.
Benefits of AI-Powered Systems for Preventing Cybersecurity Attacks
As AI continues to evolve, so do the ways in which it can help protect businesses from threats and attacks.
Reduce Human Error
One of the primary ways AI is transforming the business landscape is by automating tasks, thereby reducing the likelihood of human error. With more work on everyone’s plates and pressure to accomplish a lengthy to-do list in less time, AI is transforming how employees do their work for the better. In terms of cybersecurity, this means handling routine alerts with ease, such as blocking malicious traffic or isolating devices at machine speed. AI can sift through vast amounts of data in minutes, finding subtle threats and responding to them instantly.
Vertical AI platforms, such as Impel, which are specifically designed for automotive, leverage industry-specific data and workflows to automate complex tasks. These tasks are completed with a higher level of accuracy compared to manpower. This doesn’t mean that AI can replace the work of a hands-on security team; rather, it can assist in making the team even more powerful and efficient in their day-to-day jobs.
Enforce Consistent Security Practices
Consistency is key for many components of business operations, but especially those dealing with security. AI-powered tools can help enforce more consistent security practices through data-driven decision-making and leveraging policies uniformly across dynamic networks.
Traditionally, you may have responded to a potential threat if you happened to notice something suspicious in your email system or spotted a suspicious pattern within your customer data pool. While this may have worked for the time being, there’s no guarantee that you would have spotted the same potential threat if you hadn’t been looking at a specific set of information. With AI, you can be assured that regular, consistent checks are being done across all your data sets. This automation can provide a consistent and continuous layer of protection to your most secure information.
Protect Customer Communications
Losing customers’ trust can be devastating to a business, causing a loss of sales, damaged reputation, fewer referrals, and years of regaining respect within the industry. With AI models of security, you can keep your customer communications as safe as possible.
For email systems, AI can filter out advanced phishing, spam, and other scams by quickly analyzing content, links, and dubious sender behavior. An AI-powered CRM, customer relationship management system, can protect sensitive customer information by monitoring patterns and flagging unauthorized activity. And AI-enabled authentication, such as facial recognition, allows customers to securely access their login information for your website or app.
Final Takeaways
AI is changing how the world protects itself from potential threats. Instead of a defensive strategy, businesses must lean into a proactive game plan to keep their information and their customers’ data as secure as possible. When a threat occurs, AI can respond instantly to contain the attack from further devastation.