Naveen Joshi, a columnist and Founder and CEO of Allerin—which develops engineering and technology solutions focused on optimal customer experiences, wrote an article in Forbes about AI and cybersecurity. He discusses the concept of Artificial Intelligence as a security measure against cyber threats in today’s workforce.

AI is a force to be reckoned with, and we’ve shared before AI’s impact on HR as well as AI’s journey in finance. But how does AI measure up in cybersecurity?

AI as a cybersecurity solution can help protect organizations from existing cyber threats, identify new malware types, ensure effective security standards, and help create better prevention and recovery strategies. Different ways to utilize AI for security measures include using biometric logins, detecting threats and malicious activities, learning with natural language processing, and securing conditional access. However, leveraging AI in this way has both limitations and solutions for challenges.

Limitations of Using AI for Cybersecurity

The idea of using AI for cybersecurity is promising, but there are undoubtedly limitations of AI that are obstructing the mainstream adoption of the technology. Some limitations include:

• Building and maintaining an AI-base system requires a tremendous amount of resources, such as memory, computing power and data.
• Since AI systems are trained with data, cybersecurity firms need to feed new datasets of malicious codes and non-malicious codes regularly to help AI learn.
• Data used for training needs to be accurate because inaccurate data would lead to inefficient outcomes but finding and collecting precise datasets can be a tedious and time-consuming task.
• Hackers can use AI to test their own malware, so they could potentially develop advanced malware or maybe even AI-proof malware strains.

With these limitations in mind, it’s important to develop the best strategy for AI and cybersecurity within your organization. Naveen also laid out solutions and best practices for dealing with cybersecurity challenges.

Best Practices for Overcoming Cybersecurity Challenges

It’s important for organizations to understand that AI has a long way to go before it can become a standalone cybersecurity solution. For now, the best option is to use AI along with traditional techniques. Here are a few guidelines that Naveen laid out to help you maintain effective security standards while combining AI with traditional techniques:

• Hire experienced cybersecurity professionals with niche skills.
• Have cybersecurity professional test systems and networks for vulnerabilities and fix them preemptively.
• Use URL filtering and reputation-based security services to block malicious links that may contain viruses or malware.
• Implement firewalls and malware scanners to block malware and viruses.
• Pay close attention to the outgoing traffic and apply egress filters to restrict outgoing traffic.
• Analyze cyber threats and security protocols to gain informative insights that would help create a more secure approach toward cyber attacks.
• Update existing systems in the organization to integrate modern technologies like AI and machine learning.
• Conduct regular audits of hardware and software to monitor the health of the systems must be among the top priorities.
• Consider training employees and educating them about cyber attacks.
• Incentivize and promote the development of innovative applications.

To learn more about the potential for AI to become a cybersecurity solution, check out the full article from Forbes attached below.