Artificial Intelligence and Security: What You Should Know

In March 2019, Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian renewable energy and aluminum manufacturing company, faced a ransomware attack. Rather than paying the ransom, a cybersecurity team used artificial intelligence to identify the corruption in the computer system and rebuild the operations in an uncorrupted parallel system. LockerGoga ransomware was eventually identified as the culprit, which spread via Windows-based systems. While Norsk avoided paying the ransom, the attack still forced it to operate without computer systems for an extended period of time (weeks to months), while the security team isolated and scanned thousands of employee accounts for malicious activity. Signature-based detection is an approach in which a unique identifier is established about a known threat so that it can be identified in the future.