Technological advances in artificial intelligence are fuelling a new race between hackers and those toiling to protect cybersecurity networks. Cybersecurity is always a race between offence and defence but new tools are giving companies that employ them a leg up on those trying to steal their data. Whereas past responses to cybercrimes often looked for known hacking methods long after they occurred, AI techniques using machine learning scan huge volumes of data to detect patterns of abnormal behaviour that are imperceptible to humans. Experts expect machines will become so sophisticated that they'll develop answers to questions that humans won't clearly understand. David Decary-Hetu, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Montreal, says defenders have an edge right now in using artificial intelligence.

David Decary-Hetu, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Montreal, says defenders have an edge right now in using artificial intelligence. "But who knows what's going to happen in a few years from now," he said in an interview. "The main issue is that if you're defending a system you have to be good 100 per cent of the time, but when you're attacking the system you only have to be successful once to get in." Decary-Hetu said a growing list of corporate and government officials who say infiltrations are their top worry, including Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz, have a very good reason to fear. The Bank of Canada warned in its semi-annual review released this month that the high degree of interconnectedness among Canadian financial institutions means any successful cyberattack could spread widely throughout the financial system.

MONTREAL – Technological advances in artificial intelligence are fuelling a new race between hackers and those toiling to protect cybersecurity networks. Cybersecurity is always a race between offence and defence but new tools are giving companies that employ them a leg up on those trying to steal their data. Whereas past responses to cybercrimes often looked for known hacking methods long after they occurred, AI techniques using machine learning scan huge volumes of data to detect patterns of abnormal behaviour that are imperceptible to humans. Experts expect machines will become so sophisticated that they'll develop answers to questions that humans won't clearly understand. David Decary-Hetu, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Montreal, says defenders have an edge right now in using artificial intelligence.

MONTREAL - Technological advances in artificial intelligence are fuelling a new race between hackers and those toiling to protect cybersecurity networks. Cybersecurity is always a race between offence and defence but new tools are giving companies that employ them a leg up on those trying to steal their data. Whereas past responses to cybercrimes often looked for known hacking methods long after they occurred, AI techniques using machine learning scan huge volumes of data to detect patterns of abnormal behaviour that are imperceptible to humans. Experts expect machines will become so sophisticated that they'll develop answers to questions that humans won't clearly understand. David Decary-Hetu, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Montreal, says defenders have an edge right now in using artificial intelligence.