By Tristan Shortland, Chief Innovation Officer at Infinity Group, www.infinitygroup.co.uk, hello@infinitygroup.co.uk
Recent data has found that a huge 87% of businesses are unprepared for AI-powered cyber attacks. Cyber security has been a long-term concern for businesses. But it has taken a new precedence in the age of artificial intelligence. Criminals can now use AI to increase the scale of their activities. This includes:
- Increasing the speed and scale of their attacks, using AI to generate the likes of phishing emails
- Furthering social engineering, by allowing the attacker to create impersonated content
- Use deepfakes to spread misinformation or trick employees within your business
In short, AI can fuel malicious activity in the wrong hands and put more businesses at risk.
If businesses do not prepare for this new era, they will be left vulnerable. There are significant repercussions for businesses who fall victim to attacks, including operational disruption, loss of customer trust, non-compliance and financial losses.
However, the question to answer is how can businesses best protect themselves against this incoming tidal wave of AI-powered cyber attacks?
The solution is to fight fire with fire, by employing AI security tools – like the recently announced Microsoft Copilot for Security.
How can AI mitigate cyber attacks?
While AI can facilitate bad actors, it can also greatly increase protection against cyber threats. Benefits of AI in the cyber security space include:
- Faster threat detection and response: AI can analyse vast amounts of data from network activity beyond human speed. It can then identify suspicious behaviour and threats, enabling businesses to take swift, preventative action.
- Improved accuracy: AI can sieve through high volumes of data to find patterns that may go unnoticed by the human eye. This results in accurate detection of malicious activity.
- Automation: AI will automate manual security tasks associated, such as vulnerability scanning and patching systems. Professionals can then reclaim time to focus on cyber security strategy and incident investigation.
- Continuous monitoring: AI systems can monitor network activity 24/7, every day of the year. This offers constant vigilance against potential threats, whenever they happen.
AI tools are also better equipped to understand and mitigate against AI-based cyber attacks, helping to counteract activity. Microsoft data shows that businesses who do leverage AI in their security practice are twice as resilient, and experience greater cost efficiency too.
How can Copilot for Security support businesses?
Announced earlier this year and made publicly available in April, Copilot for Security is the first publicly available generative AI security product. It’s a chatbot, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Microsoft’s own security model.
It’s also informed by the 78 trillion+ security signals processed by Microsoft every day, allowing it to analyse data and provide context to deliver tailored actionable insights for users.
Using natural language prompts, it can assist IT and security teams in:
- Analysing threats and malicious scripts
- Building hunting queries to detect dangers
- Resolving incidents correctly
- Following best practice for device configuration, including checking they meet company policy
- Generating, testing and summarising access policies
- Identifying data and user risks within your IT network, such as out-of-date devices
- Understanding when and why multi-factor authentication has been trigged for users
- Creating incident reports to share internally
Due to the advantages of AI, even junior security staff can work through complex scenarios for enhanced team skills. Plus, with access to vast data signals, Microsoft Copilot increases visibility of the threats facing businesses, giving them the opportunity to combat them before they impact. By using an AI-powered tool, businesses can meet the challenge of AI cyber attacks, stopping criminals in their tracks.
Infinity Group is one of few organisations globally that holds Microsoft Cloud Solutions status. Their experts have a deep understanding of the latest Microsoft innovation, including security solutions, enabling them to work with businesses to enhance prevention and protection against cyber attacks