Security: Using AI for Evil

Artificial intelligence (AI) is positively impacting our world in previously unimaginable ways across many different industries. The use of AI is particularly interesting in the cybersecurity industry because of its unique ability to scale and prevent previously unseen, aka zero-day, attacks. But remember, similar to how drug cartels built their own submarines and cellphone towers to evade law enforcement, and the Joker arose to fight Batman, so too will cyber-criminals build their own AI systems to carry out malicious counter-attacks. An August 2017 survey commissioned by Cylance discovered that 62% of cybersecurity experts believe weaponized AI attacks will start occurring in 2018. AI has been heavily discussed in the industry over the past few years, but most people do not realize that AI is not just one thing, but that it is made up of many different subfields.