In 2014 Amazon built a customized Cloud Computing service for the CIA, complying with strict compliance requirements and regulations for sensitive data. But it wasn’t until the fourth quarter of last year that Amazon opened those same tools from its cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), to other customers outside of the Intelligence community. In addition, and always according to the American consultancy CB Insights, Amazon has recently acquired two cybersecurity companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), Harvest.AI and Sqrrl, to secure sensitive data in the cloud.
“Whether Amazon or new startups serving government clients in the United States, artificial intelligence promises to be the backbone of new cybersecurity efforts,” explains the consultancy. If in the cold war governments talked about their “missile gaps” or their disadvantages relative to rivals in terms of nuclear warheads, now governments increasingly brand their gaps in terms of cyber capabilities. As a result, the worlds of cybersecurity and traditional defense are merging. “It’s the data breaches that bring the risks.”
For this reason, CB Insights recognizes that “cybersecurity represents a real opportunity for the deployment of AI algorithms, since attacks are constantly evolving and defenses frequently face unknown types of malware.” Artificial intelligence would presumably have an advantage, given its ability to operate with a large amount of data and sift through millions of incidents to identify anomalies , risks, and signs of future threats.
Thus, the market is now being flooded with new cybersecurity companies, which are trying to take advantage of machine learning . A total of 134 startups have raised $ 3.65 billion in equity funding in the last 5 years. And about thirty of them have grown large enough to compete in a market dominated by larger companies like Cybereason, CrowdStrike, Cylance, and Tanio, which have valuations close to a billion dollars.
Also in January of this year Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced the launch of Chronicle, an artificial intelligence-based tool for the cybersecurity industry, which aims to fight cybercrime on a global scale using machine learning directly. . “Simply,” say the experts, ” there is not enough cybersecurity talent available to safeguard company data, and this is the reason why artificial intelligence and its derivatives must be used.”
According to Google, in 2022 there will be almost two million cybersecurity experts in the world, but that more and more will prefer to work in big technology such as Google, Amazon or Apple and in Silicon Valley attracted by succulent salaries, instead of working in small companies. companies dedicated to safeguarding the security in the network of third companies.
Humans will continue to fail and so will traditional security applications. The solution is called, also in cybersecurity, automation. Larry Ellison himself, president of Oracle, has been precise in this regard: “we will lose the war if the dispute is between people and computers. The fight must be between computers ”. Or between computers and computers run by humans, if we follow the premises of Mike Dillinger, with whom we already spoke in this Blog.
Artificial intelligence represents the only viable future for cybersecurity, although there are still doubts for analysts. Still, they themselves point out that “companies should focus on hiring security intelligence analysts who are experts in their industry, and who can analyze the specific anomalies marked by AI-based cybersecurity solutions. And make no mistake, the future of cybersecurity lies in the partnership of man and machine, both supporting each other in the fight against hackers. It is the only path to success if organizations want a reasonable chance of surviving the onslaught of complex and sophisticated attacks. “
