Machine learning in cyber security: It's only just starting

Machine-learning has become one of the biggest buzzwords in cyber security, with almost every maker of a product in this sector touting it as part of their detection capability. A recent example of that turned up last week in a blog from Microsoft describing how in May Windows Defender spotted something suspicious in a small-scale email campaign purportedly from a landscaping business in Calgary. Microsoft's machine learning systems stopped the mail, which asked target victims to review an attached PDF document. It turned out the mail was coming from a spoofed address of the landscaping business. More than that, it was a spear phishing campaign to around 80 persons or firms.