When it comes to integrating AI-based processes into security, it isn't just useful; it's become essential and is rapidly becoming mission critical to organizations of all sizes. The rapidly expanding attack surface of virtually every enterprise, with the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and cloud systems is a leading reason why artificial intelligence (AI) has become essential in security. Organizations have moved from securing thousands of devices to potentially millions. Within this new surge in network traffic are billions of time-varying signals, all of which must be analyzed to assess risk. Security is becoming incredibly more complex in just a handful of years because there is far more to attack.

The rapidly expanding attack surface of virtually every enterprise, with the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and cloud systems is a leading reason why artificial intelligence (AI) has become essential in security. Add to this the fact that malicious attackers also have AI at their disposal: Their attacks have become more sophisticated and frequent – with AI allowing them to automate breach attempts. Through AI, it's now possible for a security system to be frequently updated on both global and industry-specific threats, and to prioritize them according to their local potential to occur. It's stated above that much of the problem today is the proliferation of IoT, which opens up the attack surface; AI helps manage the burgeoning ocean of devices, to navigate their firmware updates and security patches, where no human security professional could reasonably be expected to do so. With self-learning, device management, ongoing gap detection and threat exposure, the system can learn to predict the risk of breach under a wide range of scenarios, and even to prioritize those risks – making it possible for the human security professionals to focus their attention on the greatest ones. As AI offers new functionality and potential for new cybersecurity threats, how do these play out as explicit features?

Even as AI technology transforms some aspects of cybersecurity, the intersection of the two remains profoundly human. Although it's perhaps counterintuitive, humans are front and center in all parts of the cybersecurity triad: the bad actors who seek to do harm, the gullible soft targets, and the good actors who fight back. Even without the looming specter of AI, the cybersecurity battlefield is often opaque to average users and the technologically savvy alike. Adding a layer of AI, which comprises numerous technologies that can also feel unexplainable to most people, may seem doubly intractable -- as well as impersonal. That's because although the cybersecurity fight is sometimes deeply personal, it's rarely waged in person.