Security Leaders Look to AI to Find the Needles in Data Lakes

BlackBerry Cylance and SANs Research Point Toward a Future of Predictive Security

BlackBerry Cylance, a business unit of BlackBerry Limited announced the findings of its global artificial intelligence (AI) security survey, commissioned with the help of the SANS Institute, which highlights that 85% of cybersecurity professionals surveyed believe that AI can improve security, now more than ever, given the vast amounts of available data captured and analyzed in the Internet of Things.

The Security Gets Smart with AI survey indicated that, among 261 corporate and government security professionals surveyed, the most intended uses of AI are toward cyber defense (75.2%), malware prevention (70.5%), and advanced threat detection/prevention (68.6%).

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“Given the increasing threat landscape and our exploding reliance on IoT devices, the potential for digital malfeasance grows rapidly too, highlighting the need for sophisticated defensive strategies,” said Kumud Kalia, chief information and technology officer at BlackBerry Cylance. “The adoption of AI is critical for security teams to gain predictive advantage, particularly to protect against malware and to detect and respond to traditionally evasive non-malware threats. As we have demonstrated at BlackBerry Cylance, AI can deliver incredibly powerful results across mobile, fixed, and cloud-based security environments.”

Based on survey findings, security professionals look to AI security solutions to assist with a range of challenges from advanced threat detection and malware prevention to decision management and regulatory compliance. The areas that elicit the highest rates of adoption are oriented toward general cyber defense, indicating that applications of AI for threat detection, prevention, and response—whether threats are known or unknown, internal or external—will continue to be in high demand going forward.

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Key findings from the survey include:

• The top three technologies considered part of an AI-enabled solution are predictive analytics (76%), deep learning platforms (74%), and machine learning platforms (73%)
• The top three use cases for AI are cyber defense (75%), malware prevention (71%), and advanced threat detection and prevention (69%)
• Experience with AI: While 57% of respondents said they are using or plan to use AI-driven security solutions, only 35% have direct experience with such platforms
• Technology maturity: 46% consider AI-based security solutions to be maturing; however, lack of technology maturity is a barrier to adoption

“AI-powered security solutions will continue to gain in prominence as organizations look to market for the latest tools that allow them to be proactive and adaptive rather than reactive in addressing security threats,” said Sasi Murthy, vice president of product marketing at BlackBerry Cylance. “To reduce risk of advanced threats, predictive AI-driven security is no longer an option: It’s a requirement.”

Across all industries, survey respondents sought the use of AI to better identify unknown threats, which remain the most pernicious and challenging threats to address without a predictive advantage. Respondents also saw AI as an enabler of more effective, holistic approaches to protection; improved capture and use of threat intelligence; reduction in time between infection and remediation; real-time alerts of anomalous behavior; and better use of existing investments and human analysts.

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