Machine learning and artificial intelligence are timely subjects that spark the public imagination. In 2016, between $26 billion and $39 billion was invested in AI, according to recent estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute, a leading private-sector think tank. That number is three times the amount spent just three years prior, an increase driven by entrepreneurial activity and technological advancements. Although thousands of venture firms are investing in sexy machine learning projects, there are very real benefits that machine learning and AI are realizing now, not in a future timeline of self-driving cars and full home automation. Smart investors and observers should consider following companies that are solving these five issues.

Time is the most important factor in detecting network breaches and, consequently, in containing cyber incidents and mitigating the cost of a breach. "Security event investigations can last hours, and a full analysis of an advanced threat can take days, weeks or even months. Even large security operations center (SOC) teams with more than 10 skilled analysts find it difficult to detect, confirm, remediate, and verify security incidents in minutes and hours," says Chris Morales, Vectra Network's head of security analytics. "However, the teams that are using artificial intelligence to augment their security existing analysts and achieve greater levels automation are more effective than their peers and even SOC teams with more than 10 members who are not using AI." Vectra Networks has polled 459 Black Hat attendees on the composition and effectiveness of their organizations' SOC teams. The group – a mix of security architects, researchers, network operations and data center operations specialists, CISOs and infosec VPs – were asked whether their SOCs are already using AI in some form for incident response, and 153 (33%) said Yes.

Wipro will leverage the Vectra automated threat management platform built with artificial intelligence-based on machine learning and behavioral analytics to detect attacker behaviors and user anomalies in the network. According to Gartner, "most enterprises have limited capabilities to detect and respond to breaches when they inevitably occur, resulting in longer'dwell times' and increased damage." We believe organizations these days incur significant fines because they do not have adequate solutions to detect breaches or cannot contain them in a reasonable period. Gartner also says that by 2020, 60% of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated to rapid detection and response approaches -- up from less than 10% in 2014.1 As threats became more intelligent and sophisticated, traditional security solutions will become inadequate over time because they will continue to make snap judgments based on incomplete information. Wipro's'Threat Hunting as- a- Service' offering, powered by Vectra Networks, provides enterprises with an automated threat hunting platform for real-time detection of threats.