Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, the internet of things and quantum computing are expected to unlock unprecedented levels of computing power.
These so-called fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies will power the future economy and bring new levels of efficiency and automation to businesses and consumers.
AI in particular holds enormous promise for organisations battling a scourge of cyber attacks. Over the past few years, cyber attacks have been growing in volume and sophistication.
The latest data from Mimecast's State of Email Security 2022 report found that 94% of South African organisations were targeted by e-mail-borne phishing attacks in the past year, and six out of every 10 fell victim to a ransomware attack.
To protect against such attacks, companies are increasingly looking to unlock the benefits of new technologies. The market for AI tools for cyber security alone is expected to grow by $19 billion between 2021 and 2025.
Locally, adoption of AI as a cyber resilience tool is also growing. Nearly a third (32%) of South African respondents in Mimecast's latest State of Email Security 2022 report were already using AI or machine learning – or both – in their cyber resilience strategies. Only 9% said they have no plans at the moment to use AI.
But is AI a silver bullet for cyber security professionals looking for support with protecting their organisations?
Where AI shines – and where it doesn't
AI should be an essential component of any organisation’s cyber security strategy. But it’s not an answer to every cyber security challenge – at least not yet. The same efficiency and automation gains that organisations can get from AI are available to threat actors too. AI is a double-edged sword that can aid organisations and the criminals attempting to breach their defences.
Used well, however, AI is a game-changer for cyber security. With the correct support from security teams, AI tools can be trained to help identify sophisticated phishing and social engineering attacks, and defend against the emerging threat of deepfake technology.
In recent times, AI has made significant advances in analysing video and audio to identify irregularities more quickly than humans are able to. For example, AI could help combat the rise in deepfake threats by quickly comparing a video or audio message against existing known original footage to detect whether the message was generated by combining and manipulating a number of spliced-together clips.
AI may be susceptible to subversion by attackers, a drawback of the technology that security professionals need to remain vigilant to. Since AI systems are designed to automatically 'learn' and adapt to changes in an organisation's threat landscape, attackers may employ novel tactics to manipulate the algorithm, which can undermine its ability to help protect against attack.
A standout use of AI is its ability to shield users against location and activity tracking. Trackers are usually adopted by marketers to refine how they target their customers. But unfortunately, threat actors also use them for nefarious purposes.
They employ trackers that are embedded in e-mails or other software and reveal the user's IP address, location and engagement levels with e-mail content, as well as the device's operating system and the version of the browser they are using.
By combining this data with user data gained from data breaches – for example, a data breach at a credit union or government department where personal information about the user was leaked – threat actors can develop hugely convincing attacks that could trick even the most cyber aware users.
