Securing vast and growing IoT environments may not seem to be a humanly possible task--and when the network hosts tens or hundreds of thousands of devices the task, indeed, may be unachievable. To solve this problem, vendors of security products have turned to a decidedly nonhuman alternative: artificial intelligence. "Cyberanalysts are finding it increasingly difficult to effectively monitor current levels of data volume, velocity and variety across firewalls," CapGemini noted in a survey research report, "Reinventing Cybersecurity With Artificial Intelligence." The report also noted that traditional methods may no longer be effective: "Signature-based cybersecurity solutions are unlikely to deliver the requisite performance to detect new attack vectors." In addition to conventional security software's limitations in IoT environments, CapGemini's report revealed a weakness in the human element of cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is a major concern for every business across all verticals. Software vulnerabilities and targeted attacks are two major cybersecurity concerns for today's modern business. The latest solutions in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being implemented to aid in preventing cybersecurity attacks and securing software vulnerabilities. According to market research by Mordor Intelligence, the global cybersecurity market was valued at USD 161.07 billion in 2019, and is expected to reach USD 363.05 billion by 2025, registering a compound annual growth rate of 14.5 percent during the period of 2020 to 2025. The research company says the popularity of the internet of things, bring your own device, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) in cybersecurity is increasing, leading to more vulnerabilities and an ever-growing need to secure networks and devices.

For over five years Derek Manky, global security strategist at Fortinet and FortiGuard Labs, has been helping the private and public sector identify and fight cybercrime. His job also includes working with noted groups: Computer Emergency Response, NATO NICP, INTERPOL Expert Working Group and the Cyber Threat Alliance. Recently Threatpost caught up with Manky to discuss the latest developments around his research on botnet "swarm intelligence." That's a technique where criminals enlist artificial intelligence (AI) inside botnet nodes. Those nodes are then programmed to work toward a common goal of bolstering an attack chain and accelerating the time it takes to breach an organization.

Swarm-based network attacks are still likely a couple years away, according to Derek Manky, chief of security insights and global threat alliances at FortiGuard Labs. But, especially as they start deploying 5G networks, enterprises should prepare for these types of attacks now. FortiGuard Labs is the global threat intelligence and research team at Fortinet. In a conversation at the recent RSA Conference, Manky explained the strategy behind swarm attacks -- one of the scarier emerging threats that he's been following for a few years. "And I do think this is on the horizon," he said.

That, in the opinion of Derek Manky, Global Security Strategist for Fortinet, is what is coming down the line at us all as the next major security threat. The combination will come in the form of Hivenets and Swarmbots, and the results could be far more targeted and focused attacks, based not on the basic process of breaking into a system with one malware exploit and launching an attack. Instead it will be based on inserting untold numbers of Bots into systems to observe the activities and identify the weak-points and collectively decide where and when to attack. Manky outlined this attack model at the recent seminar Fortinet held at its Sophia Antipolis facility just outside Nice, where he discussed some of the cyber security threats he sees coming though over the next 12 months or so. The idea behind the new developments will be no surprise to those of an entomological persuasion, for the idea is to get as many small Bots onto systems and communicating in the same way that insects do when they are in a hive or when swarming.

Most people know about IoT, at least to the level of the need to monitor and control the hundreds and thousands of individual sensors and devices that go to make up a complete process or system. Most people will have also heard of ransomware. Many, either as individuals or IT staff in businesses, will have seen first-hand the consequences of an attack. Now stick the two ideas together. That, in the opinion of Derek Manky, Global Security Strategist for Fortinet, is what is coming down the line at us all as the next major security threat.

Derek Manky, global security strategist at Fortinet, said that the world is seeing more and more automation being built into black hat attackers' attack technology. What this means is, the time to respond to cyber-attack is shrinking drastically. Ten years ago, weeks or days to respond to a cyber-attack was adequate. Today, "we begin to measure in minutes (less than an hour)". "In the future, we will start measuring this in seconds. Humans cannot operate on this level, and therefore AI is crucial to respond at machine speed to the threat of cyber-attack," he said.

Artificial intelligence is getting more advanced, and beginning to give technologies the ability to do things we never could have imagined years ago. Machines can translate for us, they can talk back to us, they can listen to us, and they can even automate some of our tasks for us. But as technology begins to get smarter and smarter, so will the threats that come along with it. In the future, we may find ourselves in a situation where hackers are using artificial intelligence to invoke more sophisticated attacks on our systems. However, Jason Hong, associate professor of the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, says these attacks won't look like the AI depicted in movies like "Terminator," nor will they be as advanced as HBO depicted in its series "Westworld."