Artificial Intelligence Application in Cyber Security

This article sheds some light on the applications of Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Security. Although Cyber Security itself is a vast field encompassing Network Security, Digital Forensics, Penetration Testing as well as Risk Management, and many other areas. But owing to the widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence in every area of Computer Science, it has brought usefulness in the field of Cyber Security as well. The AI Application discussed here is Cognito Detect by Vectra. It is an AI-driven network detection and response, that spots attackers who have broken into your network and stops them before they cause any damage.

Previously, the networks were simple comprising data centers, workstations, and a few VPN users. At that time, the security was simple, and only forming a perimeter would keep the attackers out. But in today’s networks, everything is remote and cloud and IoT devices are more prevalent. Traditional security tools such as Firewalls, Identity Theft Detection, Web Application Firewalls, IDPS, and Endpoint Protection use signatures to keep the attackers outside the security perimeter. But none of these works during the attack. Therefore, there is a need for a solution that can catch attackers in the act and stops the attack before it becomes a full-blown breach. e.g. It can detect ransomware before it does the encryption.

The next question comes about how this AI-driven security tool works. The AI tool Cognito Detect extracts metadata from all the network traffic and logs. That includes the Cloud, Data Centers, IoT Devices, SaaS Applications, Virtual Infrastructure, hosts, and peripherals. After that, it contextualizes the metadata with existing logs. This rich contextualized data allows AI-driven threat detection to spot compromised hosts and accounts. Furthermore, it automates the analysis of these incidents and prioritizes what your staff should focus on at the moment, thus reducing the workload.

The AI tool Cognito Detect by Vectra employs a wide range of machine learning models. It uses supervised machine learning i.e. Random Forest for Global learning first. Global learning refers to large-scale analysis of several kinds of malicious traffic and content and then finding the specific characteristics that truly matter. However, for local learning to identify what is normal and abnormal in the local network, it uses unsupervised machine learning i.e. K-means clustering. And lastly, in order to track the progression of attack over time, Cognito uses Integrated intelligence such as Bayesian Networks.

Thus, Cognito Detect by Vectra offers the environment of an AI-driven Security Operations Center. It allows hybrid cloud monitoring from the data center to the cloud, detects attacker movement between private and public clouds, and disables specific hosts, user accounts, and cloud workloads automatically or in a customizable fashion.