The growing role of AI in cyber resilience

Cyber ​​resilience is not just about prevention, but also about real-time detection, responding quickly and adequately to incidents and being able to restore to the original state. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly important. We explain what this growing role looks like, what benefits AI has within cyber resilience, how the NIST framework can serve as a guideline and why you should continuously evaluate and improve.

The rise of AI in cyber resilience

In the past, securing your landscape was, simply put, very clear. All your IT resources were, as it were, in a castle, with the firewall as a moat around it, with VPN tunnels serving as well-secured access gates. Due to the large-scale transition to the cloud, you now have countless ways in and out.

The traditional cybersecurity concept, which mainly focuses on prevention, is no longer seen as the best way to protect in the security domain. It has made way for cyber resilience. The idea behind it: the chance is very high that you will sooner or later have to deal with a cyber incident, so you have to be prepared for it.

Because you cannot always prevent an incident, you need to be resilient. This means that you detect incidents in real time (detect), respond adequately to specific attacks to minimize the impact (respond) and that you are able to restore the old state of your IT landscape (recover). In addition to detect, respond and recover, the pillars assess and prevent also appear in many definitions of cyber resilience. Assess means (constantly) examining your landscape, prevent refers to – whether or not proactively.

Rise of AI in cyber resilience: the benefits

Cybercriminals are using AI to refine their attacks, but AI is also a powerful enabler for security. In fact, cyber resilience would not have been possible without AI. The IT landscapes of organizations are too large and complex and the data volumes too large to be protected without AI (and automation).

Within cyber resilience, AI provides the following benefits, among others:

• Better monitoring of network traffic
• Real-time threat detection
• Strengthen preventive measures
• Automating response processes
• Respond faster and more accurately
• Process and analyze large volumes of data more efficiently.

Considerations of the growing role of AI in cyber resilience

Unfortunately, there are also some downsides to the growing role of artificial intelligence within AI. We list a few common challenges.

Evolving threats require continuous evaluation

The threat landscape is constantly changing. For example, due to the rapid evolution of technologies, the emergence of new attack methods, the growing professionalism of hackers and the use of artificial intelligence by attackers. For example, AI enables them to automate attacks, allowing them to quickly and easily search for vulnerabilities on a large scale. In addition, AI is used to develop malware that changes itself autonomously, which is difficult for traditional antivirus software to detect.

Because the threat landscape is constantly evolving, as an organization you must continuously evaluate and adapt your security strategy, plans (incident response plan, disaster recovery plan, etc.) and your concrete security measures – including your security awareness program.

Cyber ​​resilience for proactive security

Devices, security technologies, threats: they are all changing rapidly. Security that is only focused on prevention does not offer sufficient protection. A proactive approach is needed. You must be constantly prepared (even for the worst), be able to respond quickly and move along with all developments.

In fact, you should always think and act one step ahead. You shape this by, for example, monitoring network activities for deviations and by continuously evaluating and updating security protocols.

With a proactive approach, you significantly reduce the chance of incidents. Plus: you detect threats before they cause damage and deliver rapid, adequate responses to incidents, limiting the impact of cyber attacks.

NIST Framework as a Guide to Cyber ​​Resilience

The Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides guidance and best practices for identifying risks, protecting critical infrastructure and data, detecting threats, responding to detected threats, and restoring normal operations after an incident.

The CSF covers all aspects you need to become cyber resilient. The framework is considered the guiding principle for security and cyber resilience worldwide. IT creation also takes the CSF as a starting point.

What is the effect of AI on security awareness?

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) brings both new opportunities and challenges in the field of security awareness.

Curious which one? Then read our next article on AI.