It is often said that human beings are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. Despite our best efforts, we routinely fall for online scams, open ourselves to digital threats and unwittingly spill important data.
But if humans are imperfect, then who can we trust to protect our digital assets? Believe it or not, many companies are putting their trust into artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. Of course, these options are pretty pricey, especially for small and medium businesses.
Fortunately, SMBs have another solution" an ace in the pocket if you will. Cyber insurance costs as little as pennies a day and can insulate your organization from thousands of dollars in damages due to data breach or cyberattack.
Are These the Droids You're Looking for?
You might be wondering: How does AI and machine learning work exactly? Will it replace my in-house IT team or external cybersecurity agency? Can it guarantee my company will be safe and free from cyber threats for good?
Forbes warns readers not to believe vendors that say their AI can handle all security use case and data types, because a perfect solution simply does not exist.
Instead, a good AI security solution should work with your existing security team. Take for instance AI2.This machine learning program automatically detects suspicious activity on your network and then flags the event to a human expert. The flesh-and-blood analyst will then correct AI2's false flags, stymie the actual threats and let the system run again.
Over time the program will learn to better assess threats and reduce false flags. On its own, machine learning has an average success rate of 7.9 percent; not too impressive. But once it has been trained by a human, the system is able to detect 85 percent of legitimate cyberattacks!
And this is becoming more and more of an advantage every day. In an effort to breach more devices and networks in a shorter period of time, cybercriminals rely on automated attacks to do their bidding.
For example, a brute force attack can guess at a username and password combination hundreds or even thousands of times until it gains access. This would be a huge time commitment for a human, but for a machine it's easy.
The same can be said for automated cyber defense systems. A single human analyst couldn't possibly catch every attack or attempted network intrusion. But they can do a lot more with an AI solution working in tandem.
Still, if a machine learning program or AI defense platform is too expensive for your business to employ, you can still take steps to improve your security:
Start by hosting routine training sessions to raise cybersecurity awareness within your organization.
Avoid clicking leery emails, attachments, links and downloads.
Monitor your network for suspicious activity.
Regularly update your software programs and add-ons to reap the benefits of security patches.
And last but not least, invest in cyber insurance from a reputable provider. Even if your organization is victimized by hackers, cyber insurance has your back. Visit CyberPolicy for your free quote today!
