Is cyber security entering the age of automation?

Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation are technology trends dominating discussions in many different industries at the moment and cyber security is no exception. As cyber criminals become more advanced and the threat landscape continues to develop, businesses are looking to new technologies that can help secure their organisation in a more proactive way. According to Dave Palmer, director of technology at Darktrace, this move to the so-called "age of automation" is an inevitable and much needed one: "When you think about networks getting faster and big data, it's been just as useful for the bad guys as it has for the good guys, but machine learning changes that. This whole era of automation and machine learning is going to be about handing complex problems off to the machines to do some of that solving for us and bringing humans out. "Not that the attackers won't benefit in some ways from that, but on balance, overwhelmingly this is an area of science that is much more of benefit to defenders than attackers and that is really the first time we've seen that." What's clear is that the traditional model of endpoint protection through the likes of antivirus software is no longer enough, as Palmer explained: "People are falling out of love with the idea that year on year generation of improved perimeter defenses is making a difference.